Memories of Ossett Tufty Club

by oandgarchive

These are memories of when there was a Tufty Club in Ossett. It has been written by Janet and Nancy, two of the volunteers who ran it.

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Look right, look left, look right again and if the road is clear then cross.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQpkFlIksDNv_WDBoDbzkQ_oluiBAxfwTQaudS-p64QGzG9QI0daQ

Tufty Club was up and running before Nancy took over as leader in the mid 1970’s.

The aim of the Club was to teach road safety to children, especially those under the age of three. The idea was that mothers stayed with the children and joined in the fun. At each meeting we played plenty of games, usually involving the children in role playing, and always had a story about Tufty and his friends.
Among the equipment we had were a Zebra Crossing and Traffic Lights. We used the latter to help the young children to understand the meaning of red, amber and green lights.

The stories we used were usually taken from the RoSPA story books about Tufty Fluffytail and his Furry Friends. Tufty was a Red Squirrel who played with Bobbie Brown Rabbit, Willie Weasel and Minnie Mole and several more friends.

As the number of children attending grew, interested mothers were asked if they would like to help on a more formal basis and several of us answered the call. We helped in meetings in the Town Hall and later in the Community Centre.

One of three very poor quality images of the Ossett Tufty Club. If you have any better ones please let us know at ossettarchive@gmail.com.
https://ossettarchive.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/tufty-1.jpg?w=648

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Once a year we had a float in the Gawthorpe May Procession which is held on the first Saturday in May. Each year we had a different road safety theme. One year, for example, it was “Be Safe, Be Seen”. Another year it was the “Green Cross Code” with a father dressing up as the Green Cross Code man and the children dressed as the animals. The parents spent the morning trimming a flat back lorry (kindly provided by Burrows) and having a lot of fun in the process. One year the procession came to a halt on Kingsway and we sat on the lorry with snow falling on us!
Sometimes somebody from Wakefield Road Safety would come and talk to the children and at other times a policeman would come.
In the end, as with so many things, numbers dwindled and sadly Tuft Club closed.