Tufty
Tufty Fluffytail is RoSPA’s iconic red squirrel who was instrumental in helping millions of children to learn about road safety from the 1950s-1990s.
Created in 1953 by Elsie Mills MBE, who worked on child safety initiatives at RoSPA, Tufty helped to communicate simple safety messages to children across the UK.
In 1961, his influence was cemented through the formation of the Tufty Club – a nationwide network of local road safety groups for children. At its peak, there were 24,500 registered Tufty Clubs, with membership passing two million children in 1972.
Although focusing on road safety education, Tufty and his Furryfolk friends, including Policeman Badger, Willy Weasel, Minnie Mole and Mrs Owl, also made forays into other areas of child safety, including home and water safety.
Story books, TV fillers (some voiced by Bernard Cribbins), comics, board games, handkerchiefs, jigsaw puzzles, stickers, colouring books, Christmas cards, soft toys, ceramic figures, puppets, toothbrushes, mealtime sets, knitting patterns, nightwear fabric and song sheets were among the items that helped to maintain Tufty’s profile.
Tufty’s image was changed to keep up with the times in 1979 and again in 1993, before new methods of helping children to learn about road safety came to the fore.
The history of the Tufty Club
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1953
Tufty Fluffytail created.
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1961
The Tufty Club for under-fives was launched. More than 30,000 books about road safety were issued to parents.
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1962More than 60,000 children joined the Tufty Club, which was expanded to include older children.
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1965The Tufty Club was featured in a scene in Cyril Fletcher's Christmas pantomime
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1966There were now more than 2,000 Tufty Clubs.
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1972Tufty Club membership passed two million.
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1973The Transport and Road Research Laboratory reported favourably on the value of the Tufty Club, which now had 10,000 affiliated clubs.
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1979
HRH Princess Michael of Kent became the president of the Tufty Club, and Tufty’s image was updated.
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1982The Tufty Club celebrated its 21st birthday with a national roadshow.
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1984Comedian Ted Rogers invited Tufty to appear in pantomime in Bournemouth to pass on road safety tips to his young audience.
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1993
Tufty was re-styled and modernised to bring him into the 1990s.
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1994Tufty went on a nationwide tour.
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2007
Tufty featured in the BBC’s Life on Mars, when DCI Gene Hunt (played by Philip Glenister) donned a Tufty costume to escape detection when being sought for murder.
What is Tufty doing now?
While other methods of helping children to learn about road safety have now come to the fore, like many in his generation Tufty has not retired! In 2018, his image was incorporated on to RoSPA’s Keeping Kids Safe packs which provided accident prevention tips and tools to help thousands of families with under-fives, and he was also the subject of some safety activities for children at an exhibition to mark RoSPA’s centenary in 2017.
Tufty memories
Tufty loves to receive messages from people who remember him. You can write to him at tufty@rospa.com.
