We like Peter. We like Jane.
Monday, December 1st, 2008
Work’s a nuisance at the best of times, but it has been more irritating than usual recently. This is because it is starting to make me feel old. You see, I have been working with some younger colleagues on a writing project for our organisation. And to put it bluntly, although they can formulate sentences, their grammar and punctuation are woeful. I find myself tutting over their work and wondering how they got through the education system with their impoverished use of commas. Most dangerously, the phrase ‘I would never have got away with not knowing this in my day’ has crept into my mind. I’m not nearly old enough to be thinking this way.
Or perhaps I am.
Because it was with a slight pang that I read in the Guardian obituaries on the weekend that Douglas Keen has passed away. Mr Keen was the Editorial Director of Ladybird books and the man who commissioned educationalist William Murray to put together the Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme, otherwise known as the Peter and Jane books.
I learnt to read with Peter and Jane in the 70s. Mum and Dad dutifully bought the entire series and went through them with me every evening. I remember enjoying them and innocently allowing the aspirational middle class Englishness that the series has been criticised for wash over me. Having said that, I only discovered recently that I actually grew up with a revised 70s version – in the original 60s series Peter and Jane quaffed sweets and Jane clutched a doll, but in the 70s they enjoyed apples and Jane was the proud owner of a pair of rollerskates.
So here’s to you Douglas Keen for helping me learn to read. Even if the thought of Peter and Jane, like certain young people’s command of the comma, does make me feel unnecessarily old.
