BBC under fire for rewriting nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The BBC has come under fire after rewriting nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty and giving it a happy ending. The words had been changed for a CBeebies kids' show, where instead of the old version: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again" The last line was changed to: "Made Humpty Dumpty happy again." Labour MP Tom Harris watched the show, which is called Something Special, with his sons aged three and five, and was very much put off by the change. "For goodness sake. Kids should be exposed to real life a bit, not cosseted away," the Sun quoted him as saying. "We need to stop this moronic activity. Let them see colourful and violent cartoons, and let them be children," he stated. The Glasgow South MP said he had also seen Little Miss Muffet changed on the channel so she made friends with the spider rather than fled. Language expert Lynne Truss accused the Beeb of trying to shield children from real emotions. "I was terrified by all these things when I was a child and it didn't do me harm," she said. Nick Seaton, who is the chairman of The Campaign for Real Education, was also not in favour of it. "Nursery rhymes are a gentle way to ease children into the real world," he explained. "Children are being told everything is rosy and aren't being raised to confront problems," he said. But a BBC spokeswoman said the change was just for creative purposes. "The small change to Humpty Dumpty was for no other reason than being creative and entertaining," she added.