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

It's a stampede!

I'm quite content to play 2nd fiddle and give any support I can to Optical.

Yes...it's getting closer. Some things worth adding:



- Some background to the gollies' 'minstrel' origins - ie they were a soft toy portrayal of an existing minstrel character. Maybe also some mention that the minstrel character is itself felt to be demeaning - happy darkies singing to the massa down on the plantation, etc. etc. (in fact, early minstrel shows shows included open racism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show)



- It's possible Queen Victoria's grandchildren ...

...Who knows how many took a golly on a trip to a strange home in the countryside?

Delete. There're no fard facts there. Pure speculation.



- Campaign to remove Golliwogs...The campaign to remove Golliwogs possibly began when Helen Bannerman's children's book Little Black Sambo became the subject of a campaign by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples

Firstly - it's unlikely that there's any connection to an NAACP campaign: golliwogs are unknown in the US.

Secondly - there is no documented evidence that there has even been a campaign to ban them in the UK. (See my previous comment about their naturally falling out of favour because of a general change in attitudes).

Note also the comment from the R4 prog re Blyton (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fm031 unfortunately no longer on iPlayer. I wonder if it could be made available through the BBC?) 'leading Blyton scholar Dr David Rudd, Professor of Children's literature at Bolton University' said something about an orchestrated 'Save our Gollies' campaign by the BNP. So there may be at least some evidence that the 'Ban The Golly' campaign is a myth that we're meant to react against - see also the banning of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' (totally fictitious) and various apocryphal EU laws banning the traditional British sawdust-filled pseudo-sausage/ forcing us to make jam out of carrots/ stopping window cleaners from using ladders/ etc. etc.

(And for using my para.



Noddy minus golly

The r4 prog above mentioned that gollies were removed from the books at the behest of the Blyton family.



Golly good show

A good place to refer to the manufactured backlash?



'Golly complaint stops Queen making a mint

... They were removed from the shelves in February 2009 after complaints.'

It's far from clear that anyone complained. (Evidence?) What's equally possible (I'm speculating) was that in the light of the Carol Thatcher incident, a Sandringham employee withdrew them...either to avoid controversy or in a sudden fit of enlightenment.

'It's possible that was the last shop in the UK with any golliwog stock,...'

Far from it. I've seen them on sale in a few shops.

(I suspect that at best, this is out of sheer ignorance, at worst it reflects the 'Why should They ban our gollies?' error.)



I wonder...would Prof Rudd respond to an e-mail? He might be able to offer more detail on the Blytons. I'd be happy to volunteer.



Suggested title change:

'By Golly! The history of a racist icon'?

Edward

I've submitted the updated version here

F48874?thread=6547155&post=79548446#p79548446

I hope you all like it