Lollipop man raps road safety message

A lollipop man is reinventing himself as a rapper to get his road safety message across
to young children (bbc.co.uk/news). Fred Blair has been the lollipop man at Earlston Primary School in the Scottish Borders for seven years and takes regular safety sessions to teach pupils how to cross the road properly.

But, after hearing the youngsters singing modern rap songs, he felt they would be more likely to remember the safety tips if he could make the sessions fun by using something they could relate to. Mr Blair decided to pen his own song based on the Green Cross Code and the ‘Lollipop Rap’ was born.

Every day as he helps the youngsters cross the street, he sings: "If you wanna have a life and you wanna stay alive, you gotta pay attention, you gotta be wise. Wait on the pavement, always stay calm and the traffic will be stopped by the lollipop man."

Mr Blair said: "I thought I would do something that would keep the kids interested and would be fun as well as teaching them the safe way for crossing the road.

"I go into the school each year to teach the pupils how to cross the road safely and thought if I could perhaps use music to put this across, then it would be more fun for them and that they would be more likely to pay attention.

"Hearing the kids listening to rap music and singing along to it in the playground gave me the idea. So I just thought about the most important things I try to get across to the kids and started to write them down. It was just a case of writing them down in a way that rhymed and in a way that they could sing along with."

Fred has also collected some of his amusing recollections of his time as a lollipop man and, along with his wife Anne, has turned them into short children's stories.