Award winning journalist, presenter and novelist Sarah Tucker examines the mafia of the playground
It’s getting worse. I wrote the (fictional) novel The Playground Mafia in 2006 and since then have had requests for interviews and emails from all over the world where men and women have got a hold of the book somehow and told me how they feel now they are not alone.
The last time I was contacted was a month ago by a journo from The Daily Telegraph who asked me my opinion on two celebrities in Putney who were hitting each other in the playground because of protractors. Protractors? Aren’t they the things in maths class? I made a comment about these women should get a life. She printed it verbatim. In fact she printed my whole interview verbatim and called it her article.
So I’ve decided to spread the words of wisdom to you, as I’ve been contacted from all four corners of the globe (I even have a following in Japan) by mothers, grandmothers, the well heeled, the seriously seedy about all things playground politic and mummy mafia which would make those in Westminster cower with fear. They are all mummy’s boys after all.
Of course there was playground politics in my mother’s day but it was blown out by the war. What did you care then if your child got into the wrong school? The wrong school meant one that was in the line of fire and got bombed while your child was in it.
I know women who have slept with the headmaster to get their child into the school and wanted to sue when they have still been rejected (they weren’t very good obviously) and father’s who have used financial blackmail to make sure their child will be made head boy (at the time a “well respected” banker but I don’t think there are any now).
There are cliques of women, the sweaty bettys (gym bunnies usually with much older husbands), the startled rabbits (botox freaks), the mafia, the second wives club, the mean midgets (short women are like short men but have bigger chips), the single mums, the unhappily marrieds, the earth mothers, the career mothers, the dog lovers, the spiritual healers, the crummy, slummy, chummy, schtummy, plummy, yummy mummies.
Everyone wants to be a yummy mummy. But even they have a dark side. When pushed too far they don’t get even. They just write a column.
Sarah Tucker is an award winning travel journalist, novelist, producer and broadcaster. She has edited, produced and presented her own radio and TV series as well as presenting reports for BBC Holiday Programme and anchored I Want That House on ITV. She is the author of best selling novels The Playground Mafia (short listed for the Good Housekeeping book of the year 2007) The Battle for Big School, The Last Year of Being Single, and The Control Freak Chronicles. For more information, go to: http://www.sarahtucker.info
Buy The Playground Mafia on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Playground-Mafia-Sarah-Tucker/dp/0099498456/ref=sr_1_7/202-9265101-5575054?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193856472&sr=1-7
Follow Sarah Tucker on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/madasatucker