The Magnificent Miss Rabbit by Nicola Foster
On a recent journey, once the children had eaten their snack, squabbled and boredom had set in, we managed to spice things up by playing “how many jobs does Mrs Rabbit have?” Mrs Rabbit is a character in the childrens' tv programme, Peppa Pig. To the untrained eye, this may seem a rather short and possibly pointless game; however, it was that kind of journey and passed a very animated 20 minutes. As our game drew to its conclusion (16 jobs were counted but not verified), the 6 year old looked a bit puzzled. Eventually he piped up “who looks after Rebecca and Richard Rabbit when Mrs Rabbit does all her jobs?” I had to confess I had no idea but the thought of having to organise child care when you have at least 16 jobs made my mind boggle.
As it turns out we were quite wrong. When we got home, in an idle few minutes, I decided to Google Mrs Rabbit's childcare arrangements, only to discover that Mrs Rabbit does indeed look after Rebecca and Richard - it is in fact Miss Rabbit, Mrs Rabbit's sister, whose CV makes such impressive and eclectic reading - she owns the shoe shop, runs the fire station, operates the crane at the recycling plant, drives the school bus, is the helicopter rescue pilot, a dental nurse, hot air balloonist and ice cream seller to name but a few.
It was nothing less than a revelation to discover that for the past 8 years, we have laboured under the misapprehension that Mrs Rabbit was a formidably stoical woman and had jumped to some rather rash conclusions about Mr Rabbit being a little workshy. The children were just as astounded and insisted on watching an episode as proof. Low and behold, in the episode where Peppa goes for new shoes, Mummy Pig takes her to "Miss" Rabbit's shoe shop. Over the years, we must have watched hundreds (if not thousands) of episodes and never picked up on that.
Of course none of this should detract from the extraordinary energy of Miss Rabbit, who has the sort of entrepreneurial and organisation skills Sir Alan could only dream of a candidate having on The Apprentice. Indeed, in terms of fingers in pies, she could probably give Sir Alan a run for his money.
One of the very interesting things about Peppa Pig is that it is one of the few shows which has very strong female characters and portrays the males in less complementary but, in my experience, quite realistic ways. Daddy Pig, Peppa's dad, whilst a very nice daddy, is a beacon of incompetence and buffoonery, conforming to some of the less endearing male traits of refusing to ever ask for directions, insisting he can do it better and is often to be found reading the paper, watching tv or having a little snooze.
I have wondered how on earth Miss Rabbit would ever meet somebody with the sort of schedule she must run to. Indeed, a recent article in the Sunday Times discussed how successful women are finding it increasingly difficult to find partners who can equal them in terms of achievements. Of course, Miss Rabbit may be perfectly content building her empire and have no intention of settling down but, I have noticed something of a frisson between Miss Rabbit and Mr Bull, who is also a man of multiple jobs - he collects the refuse and repairs the roads - which I think would make quite a nice storyline. I think he must like her work ethic and I bet she wouldn't have to ask him twice to put the bins out for her!