A guest post by Nicci D, mum to Nuwan aged 2.
Whenever I asked my dad to read me a bedtime story, he often chose Badjelly the Witch by Spike Milligan. I remember feeling delighted and anxious, both at once, at his choice: delighted because I knew Daddy would soon be chuckling once again at Milligan’s dark humour, and anxious because I found the story quite frightening – enough to give me nightmares.
Badjelly is a fairy story about Tim and Rose, who lived with their Mummy and Daddy in a big log cabin made from wood trees. When Lucy their cow went missing, Tim and Rose went looking for her, even though this meant heading into the dark forest, braving the trouser robbers and, ultimately, being captured by Badjelly the baddest witch in the world. In the end, they all lived happily ever after (except Badjelly, of course), but I was always relieved to hear this, no matter how many times I heard the story.
Milligan includes all the details that were important to the six-year-old me: what colour Rose’s hair was; how thick the trees were in the forest (as thick as Tim and Rose’s teacher’s legs at school); and what sort of wallpaper was in the bedrooms of Binkle-bonk the goblin’s house. At the same time, his pen-and-ink illustrations leave enough space for a child’s imagination to run wild – which mine did for several days and nights after each reading.
Milligan wrote Badjelly in 1973 (my lovely hardback copy still carries its price-tag of $3.20!) for his own children. Although quite long for a picture book, it is handwritten by the author, and I was as fascinated by the quirky lettering as by the illustrations. When the tin lion says ‘Roar! Roar!’ (then ‘Squeak!’ because he’s rusty from sleeping in the rain), Milligan’s lettering really seems to Rooarr. And when Dingle the mouse warns Tim and Rose to run away if they see Badjelly, even the word ‘her’, underlined and annotated, still sends chills down my spine.
Badjelly’s significance in my world seemed to be heightened by the fact that it mentioned God (‘just then God came along’). This occurred in such a different context to most ‘God’ references that I wasn’t sure what to think, but it provided the opportunity for some wide-ranging discussions with my dad! (When an audio version of Badjelly was made in 1975, the BBC removed God from the story because God appeared to have been placed on the same level as goblins.)
My childhood wouldn’t have been quite the same without Badjelly, and I’m planning on introducing it to my son once he’s at school. Perhaps we’ll read it first in the afternoon, before it gets ‘very dark-and-night-time’.
(By the way, for dedicated Playschool watchers like me, Spike Milligan also wrote the poem ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’…)
YAY Bad Jelly. My mum and dad both loved to read me Spike’s poetry and I recite the Ning Nang Nong to Ned all the time,
Love your copy of this fantastic book Nicci
Your experiences with Badjelly is pretty much exactly the same as mine. It’s funny reading about it, because I could have written it myself.
It frightens my son too, but it makes him chuckle.
I’ve been trying to track down an audio book version of the recording from 1975. We had it as kids and it was a family favourite in the car. I’d love to give my brother a copy for Christmas as the audio cassette we had is no longer playable. Any ideas, anyone?