h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Does anyone else remember the Tufty Club? It was started in the UK to promote road safety?

Tufty was a very road concious squirrel...

yeah you got a really cool badge, and ... wait for it....a hankie

I remember the badge, but a hankie?

Or was that to mop up the blood if you got it wrong?

I remember it being a really big thing. I think I was given Tufty club reflective armbands, it was started I think during a couple of years when they experimentally did away with British Summertime, the result being that a lot of British kids were walking to school in the dark... Does that ring a bell with you?

I remember getting one of these, a Tufty Club birthday card...

http://the-stable.lancs.ac.uk/~esarie/tufty.htm

Aww, Tufty!

didn't he have lots of pals, i seem to remember a hedgehog
As to the hankie, ive still got mine - treasured possession

I don't remember these, we had two naff old called Rollo and Shandy. And I can still remember all the words to their naff old song.

My girls and I sing a song about red lights/green lights with lyrics that we made up to go with the 'Limbo Rock' music...


Red means stop, red means stop.
Green means go, don't you know.
Red means stop, oh red means stop.
Green means go, now don't you know.
Red means stop, green means go.
Red means stop, green means go.





Though perhaps I shouldn't have shared that.

i'm not sure why i was a member of the tufty club, i lived in a tiny wee village - although we had a road, it was for playing on. we never saw any cars, and we'd get excited when the tractors came by!!
-okay i cant help being a teuchter

Hi Spacegirl!

What's a teuchter? Sounds like a great word!

My road when I was a girl ended at a dead-end that lead onto fields, one house down from mine, so same kind of thing. If you followed the Tufty Club rules - never cross between parked cars - you'd never get anywhere in London at all.

teutchter - sort of a country bumpkin.
its a real scots word and can be used in a derogatory manner.

Was there a song, there must have been
SpaceGirl

There's a guide Entry on local slang around here somewhere, it was one of the first entries, maybe we should get it updated.

Was there a song? I don't remember. I remember the badges, I don't remember the hankie, maybe I just didn't get one!

I remember the look right, look left and right again and did it all the time, even when the road was totally clear, nothing for miles, so I guess it did its job then.

I did wonder if the Secret Squirrel TV programme was an offshoot, do you remember that one?

vaguely. maybe i've blotted that one out of my memory

Probably a good idea. Squirrel in a rainmac. Shhh, Secret Squirrel?

Nah, forget it!

Oh go on then...

http://www.80snostalgia.com/classictv/secretsquirrel/

There must be a Tufty Club one out there too!

Wow, very bored, you can tell, looking for Tufty Club links and I came across this one...

http://www.sterlingtimes.org/memorable_images51.htm

It mentions the Tufty Club, and the Ovaltinines, which I think is even before my time, plus one to a 'Free Trips for Nig Nogs' competition, how unbelievable is that?

It;s unbelievable that that those were acceptable attitudes, such a very short time ago. Wow!

i've found it, the mythic tufty song
it's still not jogging any memories, but it seems there was actions as well!
http://www.scarysquirrel.org/tufty/sheetmusic
i hope this link works
SpaceGirl

I listened to it! Does he have an American accent in this or is it just me?

I really should write a Guide entry on this...

if you think the tufty club was , as a child (in wee scottish country village) we had a missionary - i kid you not!
SpaceGirl

Did they have any success in converting the heathens?

We had this weird religious touring tent that came every year, they were evangalists, and used to basically bribe the children to attend by giving out prizes to the best attendees and the ones who learnt to recite text from these weird religious pamphlets they handed out. My parents stopped me going in the end, it was really, really odd. I do wonder now if the guy running it had other motives for attracting all these young children to the tent, he seemed to have real favourites, who always won things, and they were generally small boys. All very suspect, in retrospect...

we got tokens that we could exchange for ....... PENCILS
or if you were particularily thick sweets!!

you know i think i can even remember the songs (with actions), and if you're really good then i might even sing



ps didn't succeed in converting us, we still worshipped the great and mighty tractor