The Minister for Traffic Lights
The Minister for Traffic Lights is the keenest Minister in the land. He lives and breathes traffic lights. Red, green and amber are his life. But when he has to come up with a cure for road rage, maybe it’s time for a more colourful approach. Maybe it’s even time for a traffic light revolution!
Illustrated by industry great Andrew McLean and released by Lothian Books in 2008, this is my favourite idea I’ve had for a picture book. What if there was a fourth traffic light? What if it was the cure for road rage? What if when the lights turn mauve, you have to hop out and hug your fellow motorist? Mauve lights stop fights!
Minister and Melbourne
I thought of this idea while sitting in traffic at the corner of Swan Street and Bridge Road. There are some lovely personal Melbourne landmarks in this book that Andrew included. The traffic school picture at the top of this page is the Kew Traffic School which I visited so many times growing up. And the mauve traffic light trial, with the Minister running around with a megaphone, is the corner of Heidelberg Road and Station Street in Fairfield, just around the corner for both Andrew and me!
My real mauve traffic light!
Here’s a fun thing that happened. I work as an MC quite a lot. One time I spoke to some lighting engineers at a company called Electrolight. I read them snippets of the Minister for Traffic Lights and my idea for a mauve revolution. When I came back the next year, to MC some lighting awards, Electrolight presented me with a modified mauve traffic light! So cool. It’s now on the balcony outside my daughter Polly’s bedroom.
A book about dads
The Minister for Traffic Lights is a book about fathers. The kids in the book find their traffic light obsessed Minister dad embarrassing. But he achieves great things, and at the end of the day, the lights turn mauve in the kids bedroom for some ‘dad hugs’. I love that in the second last illustration, Andrew did a little nod towards my own dad. My father, Ray Wilson, played for Hawthorn in the sixties and seventies and wore the number 10 jumper. The little boy has a number 10 Hawks jumper on the end of his bed. [the number isn’t added in this digital version but is in the book]
