They've almost become part of the family. For 50 years, public-spirited men and women have donned luminous jackets and caps and flourished giant "lollipops" to hold up traffic and wave children across the road on their way to and from school.
But after half a century of devoted service, this band of people known formally as school crossing patrol wardens - but affectionately as lollipop men and women - is under threat. A combination of dangerous drivers fired with road rage, low pay and a decline of community spirit has resulted in a dearth of recruits.
Finding people willing to take on motorists - and brave all weathers - has become more and more difficult, according to road safety experts who say the recruitment crisis threatens to overshadow the service's golden jubilee celebrations. "Few people are willing to stand out in the freezing rain to see someone else's children across the road and risk being abused by motorists," says Colin Pettener, adviser to the National School Crossing Patrol Service (NSCPS).
"We also live in a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week society, so if people want part-time jobs they can work 10 hours at the supermarket or garden centre. This is often much more convenient, especially when you are bringing up children."
According to official statistics, there is a largely unsung army of 26,000 lollipop men and women in the UK - 4,000 short of the 30,000 needed to help youngsters cross the roads safely. Vacancy rates vary across the country. In some London boroughs, as many as 50% of posts are unfilled despite intense advertising of vacancies and promotion of the role. In greater London alone, 170 posts are vacant.
Rural areas have also been hit, with road safety officers reporting 20% of posts unfilled. The pay and hours do not help. Rates of pay range from £5.22 to £6 an hour, but school crossing patrols normally work only one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon.
For some, the hours are even less. Jenny Beamish works just 35 minutes in the morning and 35 minutes in the afternoon on a crossing near Newlyn school in Cornwall. The road is very busy as it links Newlyn, one of Britain's busiest fishing ports, to Penzance. Beamish admits she gets a lot of verbal abuse from motorists, but is dedicated to her work.
"Lots of the children see me as a friend they can trust, and call me Jenny, and it's wonderful watching them grow up," Beamish says. "Occasionally they might look sad and if something is wrong, I can have a word with the headteacher. We work as a team."
Beamish says the main road near the school is particularly busy in the mornings, when motorists are most abusive. "It really is very dangerous. Only today I saw six cars go through a red light. A child could be knocked over in an instant."
The 51-year-old grandmother, who does voluntary work on a local housing estate as well, admits the working conditions are very poor. "I don't think many people would go for this job," she says. "I'm lucky as I am also the school's caretaker and dinner lady, so I am at the school anyway."
According to Pettener, the history of the service can be traced back to the US, where school crossing patrols first appeared in the 1920s. But road safety records reveals that it was not until 1937 that Britain had its first lollipop lady with the appointment of one Mrs Hunt in Bath on September 21 of that year.
There was a gap in the war years, but the patrols were adopted experimentally in 1947 when "retired gentlemen" were recruited by two forward-thinking local authorities to assemble children on the way to and from school. Horrified at the number of road accidents involving children, road safety officers in the two east London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham (since merged) set up the service, with the lollipop men carrying the famous sign commanding: "STOP: Children Crossing".
The experiment proved hugely popular and the wardens were recognised officially with the passing in 1953 of the School Crossing Patrol Act, extending the idea nationally. In 1984, their powers were increased under the Road Traffic Regulation Act, which gives patrols the right to stop traffic. And since 2000, a further change in the law has meant they can now stop traffic to escort adult pedestrians across the road as well as children.
However, greater powers have not raised the kudos of the job: vacancies remain high across the country, causing anguish to parents and teachers alike. In Plymouth, a desperate shortage of wardens has left some city schools without cover. In one of the worst cases, Austin Farm primary school, which lies on a busy road, has been without a crossing warden for more than 12 months. A recent parental initiative backfired after a mother of one of the pupils donned her own reflective jacket to show children across the road, but ended up being questioned by police for obstructing traffic.
Peter Rockey, road safety officer for Plymouth council, says the job can only be done with correct training. "People have to wear the approved uniform, use the correct system for crossing the road and police checks have to be made. We have just advertised heavily to fill the vacancies and we are hopeful we can fill at least one post."
One way forward is improved recruitment methods. New advice to local authorities on filling vacancies and protecting crossing wardens is being drafted by the NSCPS and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, to coincide with the golden jubilee year. In addition, a national competition is being launched to find the lollipop man or woman of the year.
Whether this will be enough to raise the profile of the job is debatable, says Pettener. "If road safety officers can't recruit more school crossing patrols, then they will have to look at introducing more pelican crossings or other forms of controlled crossing," he says. "Although these will benefit the whole community, they do not replace the friendly face of a trusted school crossing patrol warden."
'Being a lollipop man was popular then'
Eighty-two-year-old Dorothy Pummell has a special reason to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the School Crossing Patrol Act. As one of Britain's first road safety officers, employed by Barking council, she played an active part in getting lollipop men - for it then was only men - on the streets of London.
Working alongside Jock Brining, road safety officer for the neighbouring borough of Dagenham, Pummell struggled to find ways of reducing the number of accidents involving children. "Ninety per cent of children walked to school unaccompanied; most also went to the park to play on their own, or with friends of the same age, and many played in the streets," she recalls.
Referring to today's anxiety about abduction and abuse, she says: "We didn't have the fears now so obvious - we actually advised that they ask an adult to see them across busy roads. It was this that gave Brining his big idea: why not have official adults stationed at places where traffic was worst, to assemble the children on the way to school into groups and marshal them across?"
After a lot of persuasion, the two councils agreed with the idea and Pummell and Brining set about recruiting "active retired gentlemen" who were issued with the lollipop stick and fitted out with white coats, yellow armbands, and peaked caps. Other boroughs followed suit and the Metropolitan police helped with training before taking over the running of the service in 1951.
Pummell, a fellow of the Institute of Road Safety Officers, retired in 1984 after receiving an MBE for her work. She thinks the service has changed dramatically over the past half century.
"Being a lollipop man was popular then," she says. "It was one of the few jobs people could do without losing any of their pension. Roads were also a great deal less busy, but many more children were out on their own running errands, going to school or out to play."
