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Schoolbooks used to put mammy in the kitchen, daddy in the garden and safety elsewhere entirely

BACK-TO-SCHOOL time, and children return with a schoolbag full of newly covered books. Yet, as they open their primary school reader and trace their fingers around the first words, they should know that the return to school could be worse: they could have been born in the 1970s, when instead of Molly’s birthday adventures or Len and Jen’s games and tricks, children were greeted with two red-haired, fair-skinned lovelies with questionable sartorial taste, Sean and Maura. But how else have schoolbooks changed through the decades?

1970s

Here is Maura, sitting demurely on a floral pouffe. And here is Sean, frolicking in the grass (he’s allowed – he’s a boy, you see). Big hair and bad wardrobe aside, the protagonists of CJ Fallon’s Hopscotch reading series had hair-raising adventures of the kind that were permitted before helmets and seatbelts became de rigeur.

Stuck for a way to pass time? Why not hop into a boat and go rowing (without a life jacket) or take Rusty the dog on a trip on the CIÉ bus. And don’t despair if things get hairy when you’re off on some perilous jape: Maura keeps a sensible head about her, and Sean is very biddable. Take that incident when Rusty gets stuck in a ravine. “Go down and get him out,” says Maura, and off Sean goes, eager for her approval. “You are good,” says Maura.

She has to help Mammy and make cakes for Sean and Daddy. Despite the life of Reilly he has, however, Sean is not happy and longs for male company. In comes the Church with a heavy hand, and Sean spends a few pages praying before a woman moves in across the road with her two sons as God’s answer to his prayers.

Things weren’t all that different for Kevin and Tara of the Stepping Stones readers, children of the 1970s with a donkey called Fred, on which Mammy liked to ride side-saddle. Yet this was a time when bad things happened to children, such as when Sam fell down a hole and got buried in clay. Luckily Tara was on the ball, despite being dismissed by an adult when she offers to help – “Little girls do not know how to do work like this” – and Sam was rescued. Another time Daddy was carted off to the barracks by a Garda, with Fred the donkey in tow, but to everyone’s relief he was back in time for tea.

1980s

Kevin and Tara may have had it good, but by the time Ann and Barry came along in the early 1980s, plenty had changed. These two were urban sophisticates that put Kevin and Tara in the ha’penny place. Ann was allowed wear trousers. It was the 1980s, so the products in their local shop cost 23p and 14p.

In these books, Ann is a demon for cakes and Barry is equally besotted by jam. Every day they eat both for tea, and nobody says a word about the high sugar content in their daily diets. Even though Mammy prepares the tea in the kitchen while Daddy’s out mowing the lawn, she’s at least allowed to wear jeans and a two-piece swimsuit, and occasionally even help in the garden. Controversially, Ann plays with a car. Most of the communication is done through letters, but at least after tea-time, when the washing up and drying up is done, Ann and Barry get to watch their wooden, push-button television for hours, and all at Mammy’s suggestion. Sweet.

Despite their departure from the school curriculum, Ann and Barry have not been forgotten, and curiosity about their post-primary careers has spawned all manner of creative imaginings about where these two schoolbook characters might have ended up. Not only is there a specially-dedicated facebook group, “Ann. . .and Barry . . . went . . . to. . . the . . . shop.

. .” where the 4,202 members discuss what kind of accents Ann and Barry had and attempt to recreate the books from memory, but stand-up comedian Neil Hickey has also written a short film, available on YouTube, imagining the two characters as they would be today. All the cake has taken its toll on Ann, who is now clinically obese, while the kitchen is in a state since Mammy was killed there in a tragic baking incident. Daddy’s an invalid who can no longer mow the garden, but thankfully, some things stay the same, and everyone is still consoled by ice-cream. Talking Shop Ensemble has also been inspired by the books for their show, currently running as part of Absolut Fringe, in which the two characters try to make sense of contemporary Ireland.

Today

By the time the 1990s came along, the complicated gender and race issues were resolved by turning everyone into bears. Bears having trouble dressing themselves, it turned out, but at least both Huggy Bear and Patsy Panda got to wear the trousers. These days, schoolkids get to read about the Len and Jen characters in the Fallons Starways series. This lot have a remote control telly and a Gran with funky earrings. And though all the protagonists are still white, there are various skin colours visible in the crowd scenes, and even a girl in a wheelchair in their school. If you’re not thumbing your way through Len and Jen’s adventures, however, you may be on the Streets Ahead series from The Educational Company. Molly has friends of varying skin colours, and in another book from this series a female pilot appears, alongside a picture of a man doing the washing. It’s the kind of picture of how things change that must have Sean and Maura’s apron-clad Mammy crying bitter tears into her cake mixture.