Say No to Strangers
I’ve just discovered this link to a treasure trove of Public Information Films, some of which I remember seeing on the telly, like Say No to Strangers. There’s a creepily odd one called Strange Caller with a fantastic innuendo at the end, a young skinny Rolf Harris urging you to teach youngsters to swim, and about a hundred more.
The one I remember was part of the ‘Say “No” to Strangers’ campaign and featured a man offering sweets to children in a park. The director had decided that the best way to make the man seem dangerous and untrustworthy was to only show him in a series of disembodied close-ups and favoured his moustache particularly. At the time I saw it I remember asking if I should take it to heart and go to up to anyone I hadn’t met and say “No” to them. Although I realised this was not the objective of the campaign it has made me very wary of anyone with a moustache.
Even Magnum?
See, I’ve always been distrustful of anyone who drives a blue Ford Cortina while wearing a grey single-breasted suit and sporting a haircut that looks like a square cut into the inside of a circle. Sadly, I’ve not met many people who match this description, except for the father of one of the kids I knew at primary school. Turns out that despite his car, dress sense and barber, he’s actually a very decent bloke and not a kiddyfiddler at all.
Oh, I thought that was Roger Daltrey in the car.