(Nursery) Crime and Punishment

Those of you who have read my ramblings for some time will be familiar with the traumatic trail known as the Nursery Rhyme Walk. I had long harboured dark fantasies of taking a blowtorch to those badly painted and peeling boards featuring warped monstrosities from the Salvador Dali school of children's decor.

With the departure of Old Boss and the arrival of Acting Manager a window of opportunity had presented itself, under the guise of  change and improving the visitor experience. My proposal went somewhat as follows:

"Can we rework the existing walk and turn it into a nature trail?"

"There's nothing in the budget for a new trail."

"Not a problem, what I have in mind won't cost a thing."

"All right then."

A few days later saw myself, McColleague and Lovely Warden standing amid the forlorn Nursery Rhyme exhibits wondering just where to start. We were quivering with excitement, this moment had been anticipated so eagerly for so long.

In the end McColleague kick-started things. Take that, Little Pig. We hate you and everything you stand for.

Then it was the turn of the Three Little Pigs' houses. What the Big Bad Wolf couldn't achieve Lovely Warden most certainly could. Huffing and puffing is all very well but opposable thumbs and an ability to fling bits of wood a very long way is what's needed to top the food chain. It was all as deeply satisfying as we'd imagined it would be.

All too soon we found we'd demolished the whole walk. Humpty, Little Miss Muffet, Snow White and the rest of the mutants had been uprooted and flung into the abyss. We'd closed off the steep stairs of doom down to the swamp of despair and re-routed the walk entirely. No more would families with pushchairs find themselves confounded by uneven steps and tricky gates. Toddlers would no longer have to negotiate nettles and clouds of mosquitoes on their way to be terrified by what looked like Eeyore, if he was made of plastic and been left on a hot radiator for too long. Now they could stroll contentedly through our nature meadow and on down to the bird hide. They could even buy a bag of bird seed to take with them to top up the bird feeders if they so chose. Not only had we improved the walk for nothing, we had found a way to generate a tiny bit of income while improving the visitor experience.

This was surely a triumph and would look good on my annual review. I could almost taste the rewards to come.

Big Red

"So, you want to build a gingerbread cottage on the Nature Trail?"

"Yes. Just a temporary one. It's for my exciting new interactive Halloween event I have planned. I want to tell the children the story of Hansel and Gretel and have them actually discover this amazing house made of sweets and lollipops as we walk the trail. I want to inspire awe and wonder."

"I've got a shed, some off-cuts of wood and a bit of leftover paint."

"That'll do."

                                       *   *   *

A few days later saw myself, McColleague and Lovely Warden bringing these mundane entities together to create magic.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I think it looks amazing."

"Compared to the old Nursery Rhyme Trail a couple of garden gnomes and a plastic windmill would look amazing."

"True. But once we're in costume and the group are in the right frame of mind, I am quite sure this simple garden shed with painted bits of wood stuck to it will be utterly convincing as a magical gingerbread cottage in the woods. Don't look at me like that. It'll be fine."

The day of the event was a perfect October day, sunny and crisp. I planned to take three guided walks over the course of the afternoon, each one telling the tale of Hansel and Gretel.  I wanted it to be as interactive as possible, so the children were actually part of the story. So many guided walks and tours are hugely dull for adults, let alone children, and I wanted this to be anything but.

I was the story teller and guide, Big Red. I used to be Little Red Riding Hood, I informed the groups, but I grew. I had personal experience of these woods but not to worry, the big bad wolf wouldn't be bothering us today (at which point I showed them the wolf's head prop I had cunningly stashed in my wicker picnic basket.)

The picnic basket also contained a big bag of breadcrumbs which the children were encouraged to dip into so we could leave a trail just as Hansel and Gretel did and which would be obligingly eaten by ducks, sheep and, on at least one tour, a visitor's dog.

 McColleague was a part of each group, coming with us from the start, nonchalantly carrying a large shoulder bag. As we drew nearer the gingerbread shed I paused for a while in the orchard, to recreate Hansel and Gretel's fearful night in the woods. "Close your eyes," I instructed, "and listen. What sorts of noises can you hear? What sorts of noises do you think you might hear in the night?" Some of the children were entertainingly creative with their hoots, growls and comedy parps.

While all this was going on McColleague would leave the group and hurry on ahead to the shed, where she would complete an amazing transformation using only the contents of the big shoulder bag.




After sufficient time had passed I would move the group on to the next chapter of our story. Hansel and Gretel, tired and hungry, finally stumble across  a dwelling in a clearing. Hooray, they are saved! It looks like a shed, but no, it's a totally edible and completely realistic gingerbread house!

The children would eagerly gather round as I recounted the delight with which Hansel and Gretel broke off pieces of chocolate and biscuit and  gorged themselves silly. But what they didn't know was that in this house lived.....a witch!

And bang on cue McColleague would come flying out of the shed and chase the children, cackling madly. The kids never failed to shriek and run while their parents collapsed in laughter.

Eventually things would settle down again and we would finish the story, with Hansel being slowly fattened up and the short-sighted witch being fooled into thinking he was still too skinny to eat when he hands her a bone instead of his finger to squeeze through the bars of his cage. We re-enacted this with a small plastic dog bone from the pet shop as I didn't want to risk upsetting anybody with a real one.

The tale finally ended with clever Gretel tricking the witch and pushing her into her own oven. I did the pushing for this bit. Interaction is all well and good but knowing how keen over-stimulated children would be to shove a wicked witch headfirst into a painted fireplace I thought it best to cover this part of the roleplay myself so that McColleague and her pointy hat would survive to perform another day.

By 5 o'clock we were all interactived out.

"There aren't any more tours now, are there? Please tell me that was the last one. Please don't put me back in the shed."

"That was the last one, McColleague. All that remains now is to close up, cash up, put more lippy on, open the wine and partay."

I am a great believer in balancing hard work with an equally demanding level of play. Some people might say that having been on their feet all afternoon, talking non stop, having to do it all again tomorrow, they might prefer to have a quiet evening in on the sofa, resting. Those people are sensible and have probably never known the pain of having to open a visitor attraction the morning after with a head full of ball bearings. However, these people do not get to go to my after-event parties, so who's the real winner here? Answers in the comments, as per.

Big Red

Apple Tree

While out walking today, assessing the flood damage to the Nursery Rhyme Trail, and regretfully discovering that apart from a bit of silt on the footbridges the rest of the exhibits were completely unharmed, I spotted this apple tree. It has just the one, red apple upon it.

It looks slightly unreal, like a set dressing. It really fits with what a Nursery Rhyme tree should look like. It is my favourite thing on the walk at the moment. Still, once the apple drops, it will be just a tree again. There must be a metaphor for something in there....

Nursery Crime

Just before I came here, a couple of years ago, my Boss had decided to make the place a bit more family friendly by creating a walk for children. It's a lovely concept. A gentle stroll, surrounded by imagery from familiar children's stories and rhymes.

My Boss being my Boss, however, didn't ask for any input at the planning stages, and just went for what seemed like a good idea to him at the time. If he had asked any of the numerous parents we have working here to test walk it first, or tell him what they would look for in a children's trail, it could have all been so different. As for the images en route, some subtle touches like a bell pull on a tree, some wood carvings or sculptures, maybe, would have blended with the landscape and been fun to spot. As it is, the artwork - and I use the term in the loosest possible way - was completed by the wife of one of his mates and can be seen from space.

The final result is a bizarre array of incredibly badly painted pictures, mounted on boards, weathering badly, randomly dotted along a walk that includes two sets of steep steps and a marsh. I have to send people off on this, when they turn up and ask if the Nursery Rhyme Trail is open. I do my best to warn them - sensible footwear, I say. Does involve steps, I warn. I have yet to find a way of saying sorry about the boards, please don't have nightmares.

I shall now take you on a virtual journey, so you can share my anguish.


This is the Wildflower Meadow. Not much in the way of wildflowers at the moment, granted, but still very pretty and perfectly pleasant. So far so good.

But behind you is a horrible thing. You can tell it's meant to be Humpty Dumpty, but it is not even egg shaped. And it has something very wrong with its legs. I wish it'd hurry up and have a great fall, so I can put it in the skip.

Now, this is meant to be Snow White's cottage. The dwarves are bigger than she is though, which bothers me.

The Three Little Pigs. I can accept that the house of straw and the house of sticks will be piss poor, as that's the point. But the house of bricks is meant to be strong and wolf-proof. This interpretation shows that the third little pig didn't bother with any foundations, or mortar, and didn't have enough bricks. The message to the kids is that, by rights, this pig should be so much wolf shit by now and that chicken wire is, in fact, the optimum building material.

What can I say? Oh, for a flame thrower.

After negotiating the steep flight of stairs down the side of the embankment we now find ourselves in the boggy bit. The unwary step off the end of the bridge onto what looks like solid ground, only to find it is actually a big green spongey mass that will suck your shoes off your feet while simultaneously releasing clouds of mosquitos.

Yes. It is supposed to be Mole and Ratty. Mole looks far more like a big poo, inexplicably wearing a suit, though.

What has happened to Tigger's lips? Why is Eeyore so wide?

This is a Billy Goat Gruff. He has been on steroids.

The steps back up to the non-scary world! Not exactly pushchair friendly. Not easy to climb with a toddler in tow, either. You have to lean quite a way to your right to reach the rail, in places, while nettles abound at toddler bare ankle height. Pretty though.

And to complete the tour, the final gate, which opens towards the steps, so if you had managed to get that far with some super all terrain mega pushchair, you now have to reverse back down while trying to open the gate at the same time. Tricky.

Next month I meet with the conservators and curators as part of the property conservation plan. This trail is on my hit list. The good thing about all that flakey, gaudy paint is that those boards are going burn brilliantly.