Janet and John: Book One (Janet & John Series)

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And it is clear - for the facsimile reprints if not the adventure annuals - that many of the books will be bought by adults, for adults. The Janet and John reprints are labelled "humour" as if to get the message across. John Marsh was one of the regular underling newsreaders for the Wake Up to Wogan radio show. Between 1993 and 2009 this was a weekday early morning show hosted by Irish presenter Sir Terry Wogan, broadcast from 7.30am and 9.30am and reportedly Europe's most popular radio show. Creating Janet and John There can be few people less deserving of a reputation of a foppish lothario than John Marsh. Both he and Janet are the sort of people that you wish lived next door. Janet is no more the violent harridan than John is a lisping popinjay, but... reality is temporarily suspended for the… duration of the show when, (mostly) within the bounds of decency, anything goes. Each story lasted between 2 and 4 minutes – depending on how long Terry Wogan spent laughing mid-story while trying to read them out - and were only ever read out on air when it was John Marsh's turn to be the newsreader. They would be read out regularly on Wake Up to Wogan until 2009 when Terry Wogan retired from the daily breakfast show. When Wogan instead hosted Weekend Wogan on Sundays, the stories remained a highlight of his show. The last episode of Weekend Wogan was broadcast in late 2015. Sadly Sir Terry died in January 2016. Setting the Stories

He cites the strong sense of professional isolation felt by New Zealand educators then; this had been exacerbated by the Depression, when even books about education became scarce. But he also stresses the 'abiding sense of guilt towards the young, who had suffered in both war and times of want. . . here were experts offering us ways of making reparation to the next generation'. 4The Janet and John books were originally based on the Alice and Jerry series published by Row Peterson and Company in the United States, a series that had been written by Mabel O'Donnell and illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes. In 2001, when the books were "updated" for the modern generation, the perceived social stereotyping was toned down and more [ie any] ethnic minority characters were added. The books became a familiar aid for teaching schoolchildren throughout the 1950s and 1960s, [12] being used in 81% of British primary schools in 1968. [4] They were one of the first popular "look-and-say" or "whole word" reading schemes, the approach being to repeat words sufficiently frequently that children memorised them – in contrast with the phonics method in which children were encouraged to decode groups of letters. [12] 1970s [ edit ]

Author/Creator: mabel o'donnell, Year: 1949 - 1951". National Library of New Zealand . Retrieved 22 August 2019. I remember a great sense of achievement in moving from the Janet & John red book (number one I think) to the blue book, aged about six or seven at my primary school in north London. I was as fascinated with the typeface as with the illustrations; the beginning of a lifelong love of reading and creative writing. Interestingly though, my schooling was interrupted by a family move to Scotland for 18 months. When I returned to my primary school in the last year before going to secondary school, my reading and writing ability - according to the teachers - far exceeded those of my classmates. And I don't recall reading Janet & John books in Edinburgh. Why is there a penis on the painting?’ says Jane. ‘Because God is dead and everything is sex,’ says mummy. The original series, written by New Zealander Rona Munro, was discontinued in Britain in 1976 as educationists developed new theories on how children learned to read.Long before Book 3 it is clear that Janet and John live in far more affluent circumstances than their predecessors Pat and May had done. Baby has disappeared, and Janet and John are so close in age that they could be twins. Unlike Pat and May, who ran errands and entertained Baby, Janet and John are never shown helping their parents or 'working' in any way, except for one trip to the local shop. What they mainly do is play. Munro, Rona; Murray, Philippa (1973). Kathy and Mark Little Book - Turquoise I. James Nisbet and Co Ltd. ISBN 0-7202-1090-9. Shopping had figured in the Progressive readers too — but of a very different kind. In the First progressive primer, published in 1929, Mother told Pat, 'I am too poor to let you buy a roast of beef... but buy a big rabbit. Buy a bone too, so that we can make broth.' 12 Food and shelter are taken for granted in Janet and John: nothing gets cooked or eaten in words, though a doughnut and sandwiches appear in the very first pictures. Mother does not cook or clean, and Father seems to lead a fairly leisurely life too, though they both do a little light gardening. They are shown doing only two things for or with their children — taking them out into the glamorous adult world of shops, boats and planes, and buying them things. The major function of good parents, it seems, is to supply their children with the luxuries of life — made all the more attractive by the bright full-colour pictures that accompany the carefully graded words.

The political context was encouraging for reformers: 'we had the knowledge that the new Labour Government was pledged to social reform, and that its minister of education [ Peter Fraser], the second-ranking member of Cabinet, was one of us in the audience and applauding as enthusiastically as we were.' 5 Yet The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not John Marsh's only contribution to radio comedy. In fact, since the 1990s his marital relationship with his wife Janet has inspired a series of radio sketches all of their own, the infamous Janet and John stories, read by Terry Wogan. Who is John Marsh?A key point of the Janet and John stories is the way that Terry Wogan was able to tell them in an entirely inoffensive manner. It may seem a contradiction, but the way he would burst out with uncontrollable laughter while telling the stories reassured listeners that it was all innocent innuendo perfectly suitable for being broadcast when children were listening. The stories seem far ruder in text than Terry would ever make them sound. There had always been plenty of advice to the poor — or rather to poor women — on how to manage their children and their households. (Much of this advice was delivered via compulsory schooling; indeed, Mother's quoted instructions to Pat about eschewing roast beef in favour of thrifty rabbit and soup bones may well be thinly disguised advice.) But never before had the And she’s right. Her satire – a combination of original painting and mixed media – perfectly encapsulates the conceptual vacancy that is, unfortunately, at the heart of many of our arts institutions. She explains: fallen from 9.49 per cent to 2.4 per cent for Pākehā children, and from 7.94 to 3.27 per cent for Māori children. 19 Rohrer, Finio (19 November 2007). "This is Janet. This is John... all over again". BBC News . Retrieved 22 August 2019.

What we need is a return to a spiffing time when women knew they were weak and also knew their place, ie the kitchen In May 1950 I turned five and started school at Mount Eden Primary School. I joined a class of over 40 Primer Ones, the advance guard of the baby boom. On my first day, I traced a camel into a drawing book made of brown paper, and learnt to sing: As for education, primary classrooms were transformed by the approaches derided by critics as 'the play way'. Secondary schooling changed too, though less dramatically. In 1942 over 25 per cent of pupils had not gone on to full-time post-primary education, and another 50 per cent had left in their first or second year. That year the Thomas Committee was set up to look at the curriculum and the examination system. In 1944 the school leaving age was raised to fifteen, and in 1946 School Certificate was introduced as a qualification for those who were not going on to university. And all these reforms were being put in place at a time when school rolls were soaring. Between 1943 and 1950 primary rolls rose by 10,000 children a year; over the next five years the increase doubled to 20,000 a year. The total primary roll had been 280,000 in 1943; by 1955 it was 453,000. 20 In hindsight, the achievement is remarkable. But it fell far short of its creators' intentions. The driving force behind all the innovations was equality of opportunity — the right of every citizen to an equal chance in life. However, equality was narrowly defined. By and large, those at the top and the bottom of the socio-economic tree were believed to be there because of their respective levels of ability. And whether or not that world ever existed, there are many adults who want to hold its cultural embodiment in their hands.

It would open up that debate rather than just editing it all out. It's important these things are remembered. They should try and make it as real as possible. If you start altering it, it's no longer a facsimile." The series was a great success and by 1968 the Janet and John books were being used as a teaching aid in 81% of British schools.