7 weeks to go

The boys have been watching the original 1965 Thunderbirds series, on loan from Pam – for those of you who are not familiar with the series (by the time I was watching it as a young girl they were already reruns), it is set in 2065 on a secret island base. The Tracy family runs an International Rescue organization whose mission is to aid humanity – it’s essentially a superhero series but without the supernatural powers. The heroes have air and sea craft and high-tech gadgets and so on. Anyway, the reason I am blogging about this is that it occurs to me that the Tracy family are positive male role models, in an age where the media presents men as weak, foolish, thoughtless and generally stupid. This is not a good example for our boys to follow. The Thunderbirds, on the other hand, was written and produced in an era where men were allowed to be men – the characters in the series are intelligent, courageous and brave, self-sacrificing and even co-exist in a strong family unit, with the widower father and adult brothers all being part of the rescue team. The females in the series are feminine and although they are strong characters also, they serve in supportive roles. And who doesn’t enjoy scripting like “golly fellers” and “what the heck are we to do?”. Go Thunderbirds – it’s F.A.B. We are now the proud users of a home-based washing machine again. The replacement was to be delivered while we were in town, so we gave the driver our house key and let him get on with it. One of the things I love about St Helena!