Young fans of the North's finest manufacturing company this side
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of Hebden Bridge will be heartened to learn that a new comic book series featuring the Spagthorpe Motor Company is to be produced.
The award-winning S MC will be immortalised on cheap paper and flogged to youngsters in a desperate bid to wean them off morally corrupting reading matter like the "Tiny tots" section of the Oswaldtwistle Fancy Rat and Whippet Breeders' Gazette.
It will feature a plucky central character known as Cross Jos the Boss—seen here in an excerpt from the series engaging in friendly banter with a fellow motorist—and his gang of chums including Slack Arthur the union wastrel, Uncle Isaac the crooked engineer and Honest Nigel the salesman.
The cheerful band of friends will be seen in a variety of fun-filled adventures including such titles as: Everything s rosy in the Ironworks (a tale of the joys of working in engineering); See the happy workers (a heartwarming story of capitalist pleasure); Hooray for the blacklegs (extolling the virtues of strike breaking) and The workers down tools and threaten to burn down the factory unless they get an additional five minutes on their tea break (the power of unions). A cheerful Sir Jos Spagthorpe, chairman and president for life of SMC, says he hopes the tales will serve as education as well as entertainment to children the world over, adding: "If it'll help drum sonic sense into the little buggers then I'm game for owt. Should be a nice little earner an' all—the prices ont' cornics'll soon show 'em the ways o' capitalism." A range of cast lead toys will be available to accompany this publishing venture. FLASH: Oswaldtwistle Trading Standards officers have seized a consignment of Korean lead toys after a number of local children were found to be suffering from lead poisoning.
Britain's favourite family-friendly haulier has joined forces with TV production company Contender Entertainment Group to produce an animated series featuring a cartoon truck known as Steady Eddie.
Steady Eddie is already the face of the Eddie Stobart fan club—now believed to number more than 30,000 anorak-swathed truck spotters; he is joined in the videos by Oliver Overdrive, Jock the Tanker and Loretta Lorry.
A spokeswoman for Contender says it was attracted by "the undeniable appeal of the company with its uniformed drivers and characteristic vehicles.
"Children are obsessed with lorries," she added.
The firm itself says that the videos "will encourage many other people to enjoy the Eddie Stobart experience".
Presumably the videos will accurately reflect a day in the life of Stobart trucks and drivers, be they zipping up and down the motorway, making speedy deliveries, though probably not taking 'Steady' Eddie to employment tribunals following depot closures.
It's been said before, but finally comes confirmation that traffic wardens really are "jumped up little Balers."
Parking bosses in Southend-onSea have been forced to cover up the traffic wardens' new uniforms because they bear the initials SS.
In this case the SS actually refers to the postcode area in which the wardens work; but old soldiers will be bound to hark back to the infamous nazi insignia.
Embarrassed council bosses have been forced into a U-turn after complaints flooded in; they have issued a new prefix for wardens to wear on their epaulettes.
Rumours that the old letters are being sent to RDC managers are proving difficult to substantiate.