More innocent times.

Family party at the weekend. My niece Claire, despite looking about 23, turned 40. When she was a baby, we all sang this to her. Of course we did. It was a sweet, heartwarming song that Gilbert O’Sullivan famously wrote about his manager’s toddler daughter for whom he used to babysit. It went to No.1 all over the world. Never hear it now though, do you? Almost certainly because the BBC would now regard its lyrics and sentiment as “inappropriate”. How have we, as a society, come to this? To a point where a gentle, innocent ditty written and sung by a kind-hearted young man could be considered anything other than nice. It’s always brought a tear to my eye but it was always a tear of sentimentality. Now it’s a tear of despair.