Читать книгу Toronto Sketches 11 - Mike Filey - Страница 6

When I was just a young whippersnapper (when was the last time you heard that term?) attending John Fisher Public School in North Toronto, one event that became one of my most vivid memories (in addition to listening to bird call imitations by the school principal, whose name was Austin and who didn’t seem to have a first name — teachers never did) was the arrival of a couple of police officers in the company of one “Elmer, the Safety Elephant.” The arrival of this trio usually meant the school was about to receive the Elmer pennant to fly under the Union Jack on the flag pole, a flag that would signify no student had been in a traffic accident for a period of thirty days. However, on more sombre occasions the police would be there to take it down if one of the students had been injured, or worse.

Elmer was the brainchild of Toronto mayor Robert Saunders, who got the idea while visiting Detroit, where a very successful child safety program had been in place for several years. The mayor got several editors at the Evening Telegram newspaper interested in developing a similar program for Toronto. It was decided that here the safety message would be promoted by a mascot in the form of a cartoon elephant.

Why an elephant, you ask? Well, because an elephant never forgets, and in this case Elmer never forgets the rules of pedestrian safety, and nor should the city’s schoolchildren. To complete the picture, quite literally, an artist from the Disney studios developed the image that quickly became the Elmer that children came to recognize and obey. Elmer, accompanied by a couple of real live police officers (anyone remember Inspectors Vern Page and Charles Pearsall?) would visit the city’s public schools, where the trio would emphasize pedestrian traffic safety. (By the way, there’s a great video available online at www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/lifestyle/living/general-15/an-elephant-brings-safety-to-our-schools.html.)

“Blinky, the Talking Police Car.”

By the mid-1960s, a new generation of school kids needed something a little more expressive than a flag and a three-foot-high model of an elephant. So, up stepped Metro Toronto Police Sergeant Roy Wilson with an idea. He approached the popular radio station CHUM as a possible sponsor of an animated police car that the officer would both design and help build. The station thought it was a great idea, and it wasn’t long before “Blinky” was born. At first the car’s actions were quite simple, but as the potential of such an educational tool became apparent, improvements were made. Soon Blinky didn’t just blink, he could wink and his “voice” was more audible. He visited shopping malls and appeared in a variety of parades. Over the years, Elmer and his pal Blinky have encouraged thousands of children to understand and respect the hazards associated with living in a busy city like Toronto.

January 24, 2010

Blinky’s creator, former Toronto police officer Roy Wilson (left), and retired inspector and force historian Mike Sale. Wilson sold his “Blinky” patent to the department for one dollar.