Towards the beginning of this book, Sam Leith describes the sequence from the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics in which NHS nurses herd some bouncy children into bed while JK Rowling reads them a story. As the children sleep, the stadium fills up with nightmares – Lord Voldemort, Captain Hook, Cruella de Vil and the Child Catcher chase the children around before being finally vanquished by a squadron of flying Mary Poppinses. It was conceived as a celebration of the NHS and of Britain’s remarkable contribution to children’s literature. Since 2020, however, it’s been used as “evidence” that the pandemic was really a plan-demic. The beds supposedly prefigure a Nightingale Hospital. The choreography is apparently peppered with masonic signs.
I know about this because, as the co-creator of the ceremony, I’m occasionally waylaid at book festivals by anti-vaxxers who accuse me of using children’s stories to prepare the nation for totalitarianism. A quick stroll in the “haunted wood” of literature, however, shows that someone is always using children’s stories for something – whether that’s preparing manly chaps for empire or eco-conscious youth for the fight against climate change.
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