I reflected on the marvel of the disposable nappy. If this great invention had happened in Victorian days, the inventor would have become famous, his name learned by generations of schoolchildren
Times being what they are (that is, modern) all credit for great discoveries disappears amid anonymous teams of industrial researchers. No one knows who had the original brainwave, but we should know
Perhaps, in a future neo-Victorian age, there will arise a noble bronze statue outside a provincial town hall – a statue of a hawk-nosed man in archaic cap & jeans, his outstretched hand holding a small bundle above a sculpted litter bin
‘Sir Joseph Pamper’, the Mothers’ friend’, the description might run
But what if the inventor were a woman?
Even better, she could stand depicted by the sculptor’s art as a triumphant cross between Britannia & Boadicea, sword held aloft & one foot treading hard upon the neck of a nappy pin. Below the giant nappy pin could be carved one simple word: Vanquished
The manuscript notebook
