Golly!

[Andrew Curnow]

This story made me smile as much as anything - particularly when we get to the revelation that in fact nobody has complained! Quiet news day at the BBC I guess!

But, does anybody think this should be banned?

[Si Hunt]

I'm confused how a row can have "broken out" if nobody has complained? These are historical pieces, so they should be able to display them!

By the way, they all go for a bomb on Ebay, so get searching your cupboards!

Si.

[Wayne]

FWIW, I had a Gollywog when i was a kid. It was my favourite of all my toys. I thought it was dead cool. I loved it!
It never even occurred to me what it might represent when i was a kid, & it was cetainly never mentioned by my parents. I never considered my Golliwog as supposedly a represenation of a human anymore than i did my teddy bear, anyway. To me it was just a 'Gollywog' & that was that!

[Captain Tancredi]

They still make them- I have two England 2005 Ashes Winners Robertson's Golly badges.

The thing is, when golliwogs were a mainstream toy that every child had, most people could probably go about their daily business without encountering a black person. And probably most non-white people have more to worry about than badges and marmalade labels. As Wayne has said, most golliwogs are in any case far removed from any kind of representation of a black person so as long as there's no overt intention to cause offence, a collection going back years should be seen as the historical document it is.

[Andrew Curnow]

I agree - I had two when I was a kid, one with a blue top, and one, I think, with a yellow top (both had black trousers).

[Larry]

Well I certainly can't see a problem with them they are just a collection of badges and dolls and that's how most people will view them as and not items with racist overtones..

[Stephen Morgan]

I, and my sister used to collect the Golliwogs from the jam when we were small, they used to be tucked down behind the label, and used to save them for the badges. We had several of them and certainly saw no "racist" connection, and this was in the sixties.
Again, I think it's just the more extreme "Political correctness" brigade that are making a fuss about this.

[WhiteCrow]

The real danger of something like this is we all had them as kids - I even remember singing "Gollywogs are black" in a school play.

They were a toy. Kids loved them. If poltical correctness tries to make out that they are racist, then they push people down the line of thinking maybe being racist is acceptable, because it belittles what racism is really all about.

Racism isn't about Gollywogs, it's much darker (no pun intended), and about places like Belsen, the murder of Stephen Lawrence, about hurting, belittling and restricting human beings. It is not about toys.

[Larry]

I, and my sister used to collect the Golliwogs from the jam when we were small, they used to be tucked down behind the label, and used to save them for the badges. We had several of them and certainly saw no "racist" connection, and this was in the sixties.
Again, I think it's just the more extreme "Political correctness" brigade that are making a fuss about this.

to be honest I actually believe that these PC people are not only insulting black people of ethnic minorities but also offending them when they start saying this or that should be banned as it's racist.

[Ralph]

I had lots of these badges as a kid which I got from Robertson's Jam. I thought they were fun back then and was oblivious to any idea it was racist.

[Captain Tancredi]

to be honest I actually believe that these PC people are not only insulting black people of ethnic minorities but also offending them when they start saying this or that should be banned as it's racist.

It's patronising in the extreme for some (white) people to decide what black people should and shouldn't be offended by. I suspect most are more offended by abusive remarks in the street or their kids being beaten up because of their race than by badges and jam labels.

[Raston]

The same people who get offended at these are probably the same people that got offended at the 'camp coffee' logo-which depicted a British soldier having a drink poared by an indian servant, apparently thats racist these days-i guess servants are only allowed to be white.

[Andrew Curnow]

Goodness, I haven't had camp coffee in absolutely yonks - do they still make it? It probably doesn't taste as nice as I remember, but I remember it as tasting darned good.

[Captain Tancredi]

The same people who get offended at these are probably the same people that got offended at the 'camp coffee' logo-which depicted a British soldier having a drink poared by an indian servant, apparently thats racist these days-i guess servants are only allowed to be white.

One thing it took me a while to get used to in Singapore was being served by Asian people- living in West Yorkshire, you really do have to watch what you say at times. But Singapore is a labour-intensive service economy, so while it took three Asian men to get me a taxi from my hotel (one to run to the main road to flag it down, one to load my luggage into the boot and one to tell the cab driver which terminal I wanted) it seems to work for them.

[Pamela]

FWIW, I had a Gollywog when i was a kid. It was my favourite of all my toys. I thought it was dead cool. I loved it!
It never even occurred to me what it might represent when i was a kid, & it was cetainly never mentioned by my parents. I never considered my Golliwog as supposedly a represenation of a human anymore than i did my teddy bear, anyway. To me it was just a 'Gollywog' & that was that!

Exactly the same here.
I think people think in to some things waaaaay too much.

[Pamela]

Goodness, I haven't had camp coffee in absolutely yonks - do they still make it? It probably doesn't taste as nice as I remember, but I remember it as tasting darned good.

Available in all good Morrisons, Somerfield and Safeway stores-for a kick off.
Isn't it v heavy on the chicory if I remember rightly?