T is for the Tufty Club

The Tufty Club

If you are of a certain age (like me) you will remember the Tufty Club. It was a road safety campaign which began in 1953. It featured clear and simple safety messages for children as part of The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents or ROSPA 

Tufty Fluffytail was created by the late Elsie Mills MBE along with characters Minnie Mole, naughty Willy Weasel, Mrs Owl the teacher and Policeman Badger who always rescued the children in the nick of time.

 In 1961 the Tufty Club was set up as a nationwide network of groups and at it's peak there were 24,500 groups registered across the UK. Tufty and his friends were updated in 1979 and again 1993 to keep up with the changing times.

History of The Tufty Club 

1962 - More than 60,000 children joined the Tufty Club which was expanded to admit older children.
1965 - Tufty Club was featured in a scene in Cyril Fletcher's Christmas pantomime.
1966 - There were now more than 2,000 Tufty Clubs.
1972 - Tufty Club membership passed two million.
1973 - The Transport and Road Research Laboratory reported favourably on the value of the Tufty Club which now had 10,000 affiliated clubs.
1979 - HRH Princess Michael of Kent became the first president of the Tufty Club.
1982 - The Tufty Club celebrated its 21st birthday with a national road show.
1984 - Comedian Ted Rogers invited Tufty to make his pantomime debut in Bournemouth to pass on road safety tips to his young audience.
1993 - Tufty was re-styled and modernised to bring him into the 1990s.
1994 - Tufty went on a nationwide tour of the country.

Information taken from ROSPA

I joined in 1977 at playschool. I was lucky enough to be sent to a Montessori playschool in a beautiful old house set in large grounds. I can remember having road safety practice using the driveway of the house with the teachers riding on our toy cars!

I wore my Tufty Club badge with pride and I still have it. It is now stuck to the inside of my kitchen cupboard and still makes me smile. I can remember one particular story where naughty Willy Weasel opened the car door while the car was moving and nearly fell out the car. I don't know why that stuck in my head, but when my son was younger and in the back of the car I always locked his door or made sure the child safety lock was on so he couldn't be a naughty Willy Weasel!

There were great books that accompanied the road safety campaign such as this one:

 and other teaching aids such as this jigsaw:

Of course there were other road safety campaigns like the Green Cross Code Man famously played by Dave Prowse of Darth Vader fame and later the Hedgehogs who gave their message to the tune of "King of the road" by Roger Miller.

Green Cross Code Man - Dave Prowse

The Green Cross Code - Hedgehog Campaign

Road safety is still such an important issue, especially with hundreds more cars, lorries, buses and motorbikes on the road. Cyclists are more prevalent too on modern roads and children should be taught from an early age to look out for cyclists when crossing roads (we have cyclists who race down our road and have been recorded at speeds of 36 mph) and to ride their own bicycles properly and safely too.

I often see parents dragging their children across roads, because they cannot be bothered to wait for the green man. Sometimes parents run across the roads too. This is very bad practice and children will remember this and do it whilst crossing on their own. 

So if you have little ones make sure they know the basic rules of the road.

 Stop. Look. Listen. 

Have a look at this Tufty Road Safety Campaign here and reminisce about quieter roads and remember Tufty's Kerb Drill!

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