Little Miss Swap-About lived in a place called Scotston.
Can you guess what she liked to do?
Yes that’s right, she liked to swap things about, of course. Not for any real reason, she just swapped things about because she liked doing it.
At breakfast time she sat down to eat her toast and marmalade. But rather than spreading the marmalade onto her toast so it was nice and even, she broke her toast up into little bits and pieces and mixed them in her marmalade.
Have you ever heard such a silly thing?
Little Miss Swap-About also loved to chat, and she knew some really long words that she mixed up to confuse people.
So she would say things like: ‘Morning-Good Mr Tartan, evidently-self, scale large reorganisation, the remit of the remits in the remit’.
Have you ever heard such a silly thing?
When she wasn’t confusing people, Little Miss Swap-About also liked to go shopping. And one day when she was at the green grocers she saw nice green apples and nice red tomatoes so she decided to mix them all up, higgledy-piggledy. The poor green grocer didn’t know what to do.
Now the people of Scotston were sensible folk – they didn’t like their toast broken up into bits and mixed in with their marmalade. They didn’t like being confused by big long words all jumbled up, and they certainly didn’t like her meddling and messing things up when there didn’t seem to be any point.
So the wise people of Scotston made her the health minister, which seemed like the perfect job for her.
And did the people of Scotston live happily ever after?
Well, what do you think?
Dr Kevin Hinkley is a GP in Aberdeen.
