Eight-year-olds today have it easy. One narky letter to the Guardian and you get whisked in to be G2 editor for a day. Charlotte Jones (8), emailed the Guardian to give out that her cartoon insert had disappeared, only to be replaced by a football supplement. In return for her letter, she got a day in the chair at G2, helping make decisions on the content of the mag for the next day. In fact, it wasn’t even a letter that she wrote, it was an e-mail. It may, or may not, have been dictated to a grown-up. No stamp bought, no envelope addressed, no journey to the postbox. Charlotte Jones, eight years old, you don’t know how good you have it.

I don’t usually launch attacks at intelligent, confident eight-year-olds, but having put in twice the effort at half the age for zero reward, someone has to speak out. Twenty-five years ago, aged four, I laboriously scrawled out a letter to the BBC expressing disgust at my programmes disappearing from the television. If you read their response, it’s clear that the convenient medium of e-mail was not available to me. On the letterhead of the BBC’s acknowledgement, there’s a telex number and an address for telegraphs. Email just wasn’t an option, so I got out my crayons, rolled up the sleeves, and set to work.Note the care and attention to detail manifested in the coloured crayons. Yes, the handwriting needed work, but note also the clearly stated complaint and the equally clear demand for action, both of which are absent from Charlotte’s admirable but brief two-sentence rant. Note the LOVE at the end. I’m angry, but still capable of separating my love for the good people who produce television from my anger at their one-day walk out. Incredible emotional intelligence from a four-year-old.

I did get a letter in response from the BBC, however. A letter is good. (Better than an email, Charlotte, nyah nyah). It’s below the fold.

But I didn’t get my day in the seat. Taking into consideration that I was half Charlotte’s age, worked twice as hard to make my point, and have been delayed justice for 25 years, I’m probably due about three months’ editorial control at the BBC, and am now clearly mature enough to put it to good use.  I await their response.

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