Mr Rogers

I’ve just read about a fantastic man from America called Fred Rogers aka Mr Rogers.

He was a children’s TV presenter and much more than that, with his show ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood’

This ran from 1968 to 2001.

This show was  critically acclaimed, including a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 1997, among 40 other honours and awards, for focusing on children’s emotional and physical concerns, such as death, sibling rivalry, school enrollment, and divorce.

As well as this, he also brought a sense of inclusivity into the show through diversity and disability.

A brilliant move for those times which were very wrong and didn’t include on television, a true depiction of everyone that lives on our little planet.

So the reason for me writing about this brilliant man is that he received a letter from a little five year-old girl named Katie who wrote to him to inquire about the fish he kept in a tank on the set of his show. Katie’s dad explained that the girl is blind, so she would cry whenever Mister Rogers didn’t mention feeding the fish.

He wrote about this in his book, “Dear Mister Rogers, Does It Ever Rain In Your neighborhood?,”

The letter is as follows.

Dear Mister Rogers,

Please say when you are feeding your fish, because I worry about them. I can’t see if you are feeding them, so please say you are feeding them out loud.

Katie, age 5 (Father’s note: Katie is blind, and she does cry if you don’t say that you have fed the fish.)

After that he made sure he spoke whilst feeding the fish. Mentioning he was doing so, so Katie knew, and other visually impaired people knew, that the fish were indeed fed.

In 1999 he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

In 2003, at the age of 74. Mr Rogers died and left a brilliant legacy on how to treat people with kindness and speak to children in a way they felt heard and included.

There is also a memorial statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for him. This was opened to the public on November 5, 2009.

VIDEO DESCRIPTION Mr Rogers a middle aged man with light brown hair wearing a green cardigan and white shirt and black tie, feeds a tank of fish in front of a wall in a home set up.