Janet and John

I was eight years old before I could read. My teacher was a despot. I will call her Mrs X. (She died long ago, but I am still afraid of her.) Her method of teaching reading was to give every child in the class a copy of Janet and John and have us point to each word, then chant it aloud. The stories in Janet and John were not exactly riveting. Daddy would go off in the morning, wearing his trilby, overcoat and gloves, carrying a strange bag which I now know to be a briefcase. Daddy always wore the same clothes, even in summer. Mummy would wave him goodbye. She usually wore a pretty frock, frilly apron and high heels. If she went shopping in the village she changed into a nifty suit, a felt hat and gloves, of course.

Janet and John seemed to live in the garden. They got on remarkably well, unlike most brothers and sisters I know. They had a nice, cheeky-faced dog called Spot, and they spent a lot of time shouting, ‘Look, Spot, look! Look at the ball! Fetch the ball!’

When Daddy came home from work he would take off his overcoat and hat, stick a pipe between his manly teeth, sit down in a big square armchair and read the newspaper. Through the open kitchen door Mummy could be seen, smiling serenely as she prepared tea. She would then go to the kitchen door and shout, ‘Come here, Janet! Come here, John!’ And Janet and John would climb down the tree, or get out of the boat (they seemed to have a river at the bottom of their garden) and Mummy and Daddy and Janet and John would have their scrumptious tea: sandwiches, jam tarts and jelly.

The table was draped with a white tablecloth, and sometimes Spot could be seen grinning cheekily from beneath it. Mummy and Daddy occasionally went into the garden, where the sun always shone, and the flowers behaved themselves and grew in perfect rows. Daddy would push the lawnmower and Mummy would hang out the washing. There was never underwear on Mummy's clothes line, but there was always a good drying wind that made the wet clothes billow and flap. Daddy's hair was never ruffled by the wind; he was a devotee of Brilliantine. In the evening, when Janet and John were in bed, Mummy and Daddy sat in a pool of light under their respective standard lamps. Mummy darned socks and Daddy smoked his pipe and did the crossword.

There is a good chance that John Major was taught to read from the Janet and John books. I strongly suspect that when he introduced the phrase ‘Back to basics' it was their ideal ordered world he had at the back of his mind. But I have found an uncensored copy of Janet and John and it makes distressing reading.

Janet and John Go into Care. Daddy is getting ready for work. ‘Where are my gloves, Mummy?’ he asks. ‘Look, Daddy, look, there are your gloves,’ snaps Mummy, ‘though why you should want to wear gloves in August defeats me!’

Spot runs in and knocks Daddy's briefcase over. A copy of Health and Efficiency slithers out and falls open at a picture of nudists playing tennis. John runs in, ‘Look, Janet, look!’ Daddy hits John on the head with his pipe, kicks Spot and leaves for work. Mummy dries her tears and walks to the village shop. She is still upset by the row with Daddy and she slips a tin of corned beef into her wicker basket.

Mummy is arrested for shoplifting. When Janet and John arrive home from school, Mummy isn't there. The front door is locked; they sit on the doorstep and wait. It starts to rain. ‘Look, John, look!’ says Janet eventually. ‘There is Mummy.’ John looks up and sees Mummy in the back of a police car.

John and Janet put Mummy to bed; she asks them to prepare their own tea. They put the kettle on the stove, then go out to play in their boat on the river. It is getting dark when they return.

‘Look, Janet, look!’ John is pointing to a red glow in the sky. A social worker is on the river bank. She breaks the news gently. The house has burned down, their father has run away with a woman who owns a glove shop, and their mother has been taken to the cottage hospital with shock. ‘Look, Janet, look!’ says John. ‘We're back to basics.’