run, bellamy

Watership Down is a very, very sad film, Zig decided, lots of squirrels get killed.

This wasn’t the only moment I wondered whether the kids had been watching the same film as us parents, squished up together on the sofa though we were*.

Much is said about the increasing violence and aggression that children absorb through screens today. Yet what is the film that made Molster stark awake until 1am, when she came and snuggled in our bed with Freddy dog, and was sat on and purred to sleep by Major Tommy? What is the film that made the bad dream that brought Zig through before dawn, to squeeze the last half inch out of the kingsize and throw his mother off the edge?

A U-rated film about bunnies, made in 1978.

Art Garfunkle is that scary.



*Until near the end, that is. After a few childhood late 70s, early 80s years of owning the bookofthefilm, before seeing the film, and seeing more spoofs than my childhood cats had rabbit paws on string to pat and gnaw**, I know enough to hop [geddit] from the sofa and out of the room before Hazel felt that he wouldn’t be needing his body any more, so he left it lying at the edge of a field, and stopped for a while to watch his rabbits because even now, all grown up, even typing - and probably misquoting dreadfully – the line, makes my nose and eyes strangely runny. Shut up.

**I’ve never owned or read the actual, you know, book, even though there has to be a copy in every charity shop before a charity shop can be called a charity shop. That and Jaws. It’s the law.