J'accuse ... Peppa Pig

Yes, that’s right. Peppa Pesky Pig.

For the first four years of my children’s lives, I was the perfect mother. In one respect, anyway. My children did not watch television. No: who needed it? We had books, board games, a huge craft box, more books, wooden bricks, more books and ... yes, more books. 

When other parents talked about CBeebies at toddler group, I felt marvellously smug. What was CBeebies? Ohhhh, I see. It’s a television channel. Ah, we had only just got Channel 5, never mind a new-fangled black box thing with extra channels.


Yes, I was such a fabulous mother that I had no need of an electronic babysitter (and, of course, I had the two most articulate children in the universe to prove it). The fact that the only thing I watched myself was Location, Location, Location might possibly have helped, but I wasn’t going to mention that to anyone, lest my smug credentials be dented.

But then along came Peppa Pig.

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I found myself with the television on one afternoon. By accident, obviously. On the screen was a cartoon pig about to jump off a diving board to retrieve a lost dinosaur (or something). Well, Cash in the Attic wouldn’t have gripped me - but Daddy Pig did. And when they all fell over on their backs, laughing, I was hooked. 

So I set the video recorder (yes, video recorder) to record at the same time the following day, and I played it to the children. And we did the same the next day, and the day after that. And so Peppa Pig and her family came to share our lives. Just five minutes of pigginess a day. Where was the harm in that?

And then came the day that I wasn’t organised enough to set the video to record, so I taped a whole bundle of Stuff that turned out to be m-m-m-m-me-me-me-me-more-Milk-shake. And yes, you guessed it: the children were mesmerised.

After that, there was no turning back. Come Outside, Thomas the Tank Engine, Fifi and the Flowertots, Numberjacks ... all of them were in our playroom. 

Well, the Numberjacks were educational. And Fifi was full of circle-time type messages about being kind and helpful to wasps. And Auntie Mabel taught the children what to do if a chip pan caught fire. And Thomas the Tank Engine ... um, Ringo Starr narrated it well.

But it is of course only a very short hop from Auntie Mabel showing us round a bread factory (bread, bread, bread, made of wheat or rye...) to Horrible Histories and Tracy Beaker. And from there, you are heading straight to hell in a handcart driven by Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May. Thanks to that trio, my nine-year-old son’s ultimate ambition is to blow up a caravan.

While it’s tempting to put that frightful trio (and the entire Brainiac crew, while we’re at it) in a caravan and blow it up myself, I have to remember that it’s not their fault that my children are now would-be television addicts. Nor it is my fault for having had a moment of weakness four years ago. No: it is all the fault of one cute little piggy and her diving champion dad. Peppa Pig: J’accuse!