It's been a hot sunny week so while I'm on the white choco Magnum's we return as things are on the change at The Beano.
It was just six years after the S.S. Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks with the very first wave of Caribbean immigrants which was followed as many from there and the Indian Subcontinent were invited by government to fill posts not least in the NHS.
It isn't surprising then the world Leo Baxendale drew for Class 2B was all white as except a few inner city areas that was how it was and I must admit when I went to my Infant and Junior schools as the sixties turned into the seventies it was like that too only encountering non white children at high school.
Last week we touched on the Fatty/Freddy issue and this comes in with issue 4088 on street sale June 2nd which I do have mixed feelings over.
What that banner at the top of the comic is referring to is made quite clear when you bear in mind the last full time character that was added was Cuthbert Cringworthy in 1972 outside of the accident prone Wayne who was introduced and soon left.
Reading a comic strip like The Bash Street Kids is being in suspended animation for everyone from the Head Teacher, teacher, deputy, the cat caretaker have not changed in just about sixty-seven years nor have nearly all the class!
To be recognizable as 'a class' to children who are what this is aimed for as it was us back then what happens around the story premise needs to change with care so today you would expect computers, smart phones and the like to be around.
What they have decided to do is add two new pupils to the class Mandira Sharma who has the "Mandi and her Mobile" cartoon strip within it and Harsha Chandra who stars as the kid prankster from the joke shop who was a recent addition to the comics line up of strips.
Mandi came in upon the comics eightieth birthday and any class would have more females than just one while as a character Harsha divides me as while I agree the comic ought to reflect the modern world and even here we have now some non white pupils at our school, the asian shopkeeper is seen as something of a stereotype.
Where I think it fails is the back story, the School Board telling the school the classes need to be the same size as the others being the catalyst for the new names.
No child of eight through twelve would be thinking about School Boards, class sizes and Numbers On Roll for why things in school are different. An older child may query things with teachers and parents perhaps being more curious.
A better story would have their parents move into Bash Street, the children playing with the others and the parents applying to send the children there which more what as children we saw rather than adult school viability politics.
This said while it may not please those who want to keep it in what was even then becoming out of date it is a welcome change even if as I say the back story isn't one that kids really relate to.
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