Cringeworthy

Today is the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of the Bash Street Kids in the Beano. Somewhere lurking about in this office are a couple of Bash Street annuals, and I’m tempted to take the afternoon off to sit and read them (if only there was time to do that!).
There were Beanos around the house from before I was born (my brother was a reader) right up until I was in my early 20s, and the Bash Street Kids were amongst my favourites (along with the utterly fantastic Calamity James, with the trademark "rivets" style of drawing that including incredible levels of detail in the background). I think the strength of the Bash Street stories is that all the characters – the nine kids, Cuthbert Cringeworthy, Teacher, Head, Olive, Janitor and Winston the Cat – all had strong personalities that were easy to recognise and could be brought to the fore for any particular storyline. It is testament to the quality of the writing and drawing that they are still popular 50 years after their inception. I’m laughing just thinking about the story lines (do you remember the one where the kids entered the tall ships race in the ship owned by Head’s friend, Captain Horatio Cornplaster? Or the one where Teacher reenacted the Battle of Trafalgar on the boating pond?).
Rest assured that any child of mine will be brought up on the Beano.

2 Replies to “Cringeworthy”

  1. i’ve just looked at ur playlist. how do u find and listen to all this music when it doesn’t appear in the charts?

  2. By not watching TV (which is largely crap and a waste of time), and listening to plenty of radio – both traditional media and online.

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