I’M WORRIED ABOUT THE WOTTINGERS

What did the Wottingers do to upset Andrew Davenport? They must have done something. They are never in the good-night bit at the end of ‘In The Night Garden’. In fact there is never really a story about them. If you go looking for them in the night garden books the Wottingers barely feature in any of those either. It’s not that they don’t exist, just that if you blink you’ve missed them. Most authors who create characters nurture and develop them, but not in this case; it’s as though Davenport turned his back on them. Was it because they are blue? Still, it leaves the rest of us free to speculate about them.

Before we do that it is probably best to get the Wottingers in context. The night garden is a dream-world in which everything is changeable and relative. The Pinky Ponk and the Ninky Nonk operate in a strange space time continuum. At times Iggle Piggle towers over them, at others he fits easily inside. From the outside the Tombliboos’ house is just a large bush. Inside it is enormous. Of course we are all familiar with time and relative dimension in space from Doctor Who, but there is something a little upsetting about it here.

It’s not the only thing which is unsettling. What are we to make of the gormless blue thing with the red comfort blanket which is the principal character, sailing off in his boat every night to arrive in the garden. Iggle Piggle is a sad sort of hero, hanging out with everyone, but unfortunately left alone by them at the end of the day to wander the garden alone in the dark. It is no wonder that he is constantly nervous and excitable and suffers from stress induced narcolepsy.

That stress is induced by the love of his life, the slightly slaggy Upsy Daisy. The unsettling aspect with her is that she looks like Moira Stewart with multi-coloured hair extensions. Almost as unsettling is the way she drags her bed around with her and, with a simple tug of a string, regularly hoists her skirt and displays her knickers to all and sundry. Not to mention her tendency to throw herself on the ground with her legs akimbo making weird little squeals every time she gets excited.

Then there is Makka Pakka who lives in a cave and snuggles up in bed every night with an accommodating boulder. He clearly has mental health problems, not least obsessive compulsive disorder. He has a perpetual need to wash and stack stones and wanders around the garden with a manky sponge washing everyone’s faces, whether they want to be sponged down or not. He is clearly on a mission to cleanse the world.

Apart from living in a bush, the Tombliboos are forever dropping their trousers in public, or else hanging them on the washing line. They have a tendency to wear their clothes indoors but wander around naked outside. There is probably a name for that syndrome apart from indecent exposure.

The Haahoos I will skip over.  They are weird, but not in a good way. Apart from their inflated sense of self they contribute little to the community. We all know people like that.

Which brings me to the Pontipines, all ten of them. One Pontipine, two Pontipines, three Pontipines, four Pontipines….Aren’t those eight children just a little peculiar. For a start they are all the same height and look identical. It’s likely that they are all the same age. In other words they are octuplets. That must have been some birth; poor Mrs Pontipine. It can’t have been easy bringing them up, which is probably why if ever there was a pair of feckless parents it is this pair.

I have always assumed that the Pontipines are on benefits. It doesn’t matter what time of day you see them Pa Pontipine is always around, so presumably he doesn’t work; perhaps he is disabled. On current rates they would be entitled to £200 income support a week, £102.80 child benefit and £112 child tax credit. Add on to that Pa’s disability living allowance, Ma’s carer’s allowance and the Council Tax allowance and Housing Benefit. It all adds up to a tidy sum.  No wonder they are living the life of riley, dancing on the lawn at the drop of a hat, forever riding on the Ninky Nonk and enjoying a refreshing beverage at the bar in the Pinky Ponk. It is also likely that they are angling for a bigger house. Don’t you find it just a little peculiar that while they obviously have a three bedroom semi-detached all ten of them sleep in the one room. What is going on in the other bedrooms? Are they sub-let?

I’m sure that Ma and Pa spend all their benefits on fags and vodka while the kids go out at night to torment Makka Pakka by making his stones muddy.Those kids are basically neglected. They are allowed to climb on to the top of the Ninky Nonk and ride around without any thought for health and safety. And Ma and Pa don’t turn a hair when the kids climb up on to the roof of the house and slide down the chimney. They treat them abysmally. Take the time they decided to eat dinner in the woods and then forced the eight children to carry a very heavy, already laid table to their destination. Then they looked outraged when the kids ended up with food all over their faces. You couldn’t blame the kids for getting carried away, usually they are fed something called runny gobbles while their parents eat raspberries and cream. Nor do they seem particularly concerned when the kids go missing, which they do repeatedly. (Sometimes they hide in the flowerpots, but more disturbingly it is down the teeny tiny hole.) A lot of the time the kids are probably off letting down the tyres on Makka Pakka’s Og Pog. Basically the Pontipines are the neighbours from hell.

Which is why I am worried about the Wottingers. You hardly ever see them. By my estimate they only leave the house once every six months. There must be a reason for that. The Pontipines are forever banging on the Wottingers’ front door. After years of neighbour nuisance it’s no wonder the Wottingers don’t answer it. They are probably sick of being spied on through those binoculars that Ma Pontipine always wears around her neck. While both front gardens look reasonably tidy you can bet that round the back the Pontipine’s yard is full of spare ninky nonk parts. That sort of thing can seriously affect house values. The problem is, Mr Wottinger doesn’t have the bottle to confront them about it. He is forever pulling back the curtain and tutting, and his wife is all: “I wish you’d just speak to them.” But basically he’s a coward and the best he can do is wave at them when he sees them in the Pinky Ponk. The relationship between the two families is definitely  passive aggressive.

I can understand why the Wottingers wouldn’t want to socialise with a family who are always losing their children and who, on the one occasion they asked you to join them for a meal, they ate all the food before you got there. When the Wottingers tried to make an effort with the Pontipines and knocked on their door they were totally ignored, which was a shame because the Wottingers are very friendly. Whenever you see them they are always waving.

The Wottingers clearly have more disposable income than the Pontipines, which may be one reason that we rarely see them. Their kids are probably at boarding school, which allows the parents to get away to their villa in Spain at every opportunity. I do worry about the Wottinger children. When they are at home they are kept in the house peering out of the windows at the Pontipine kids thinking ‘What have they got that we haven’t? Why do they get to hide in flower pots all the time? Why don’t we have our own song?’

Of course there might be other explanations. The Wottingers may be on Witness Protection – where better to hide out than in a fictional surreal woodland inhabited by total crazies who are all vying for attention?. Or perhaps there is a ninth Pontipine child who is never talked about. The existence of a purple love-child would explain the animosity between the two families.

The 100 episodes of In The Night Garden cost £14.5 million to make, which is a lot of money to create an urban slum set in parkland. On the other hand it is watched in 35 countries and has sold about 1million DVDs and 4million cuddly toys. Andrew Davenport has demonstrated that you can make a programme for toddlers out of the most complex social situations. It’s shameless.