Share your feel-good stories reminiscing about Lollipop men and women and you could win a £300 Love2Shop voucher NOW CLOSED

In the early 1980s there was a local shortage of lollipop people. Sixth formers at DD's school were invited to apply and some did. They loved it, a nice little earner and plenty of appreciation from primary school pupils and parents including chocolates at Christmas!

I nominate Kings Norton Primary School, Birmingham. The school is in the area which employed sixth formers to be lollipop ladies in the early 1980s and now doesn't have anyone due to council cuts. Those sixth form girls loved doing the job and even wearing the uniform! Whoever had the idea of recruiting them was inspired.
Dick King-Smith's book The Hodgeheg was always popular with my pupils, it referred to the lollipop lady as 'The Great Female' because of her power to halt traffic.

I don't know of any schools which need lollipop people as our local Academy has one already and our local very rural primary just has parents in cars, or the school bus. But I think if I had a little one currently at an urban school without a lollipop person, I'd feel obliged to go and collect my child each day, however inconvenient - today's traffic just isn't safe for small children to judge & negotiate alone. Certainly when I was wee, we would have been skelped good n' proper if we'd risked crossing without the lollipop lady!

Hesters,way Cheltenham has one however with cuts to budget they may need sponsors to keep it going. Its in a poor area and I see lots if children going on there own.

For about 30 years "my" lollypop lady did her job daily, with a laugh and a chat to everyone three times a day. When I left junior school my friend introduced me to Jean. Everyday we walked to Jean and parted there, going home different routes. Although we didn't need her to cross us she never shooed us away and we looked forward to our chats. She had (I know now) prematurely grey hair, a beautiful silver all over, but it made us think she was a lot older than she really was. Then she was only late 20's/early 30's but even that was old to us! She saw us through our teens and I often popped back when I had my own babies/toddlers to say hi and have a catch up. She retired only a few years ago and was replaced but the kids lost a friend to several generations.

It's not only kids who need lollipop people. The lady who looks after the kids from our local primary school doesn't discriminate on grounds of age! She always makes sure that any elderly ditherers (including me) at the kerbside are delivered safely to the other side of the road. She does it with a smile and a cheery wave.

Our lollipop lady who used to see my sons across the road was lovely they would run up to her everyday, the eldest who was the shyer of the two would pat her lollipop and say a shy hello but the youngest would just throw his arms around her and give her the biggest hug, she still used to ask me about them after they left school, a really lovely lady and they always spoke fondly of her.

In the 1980's when our children were at the local primary school, we lived just up the road in the village and walked them to school, right up to the zebra crossing where we said goodbye and the lollipop man ( Reg) saw them safely across the road.He had learning difficulties, but did his job brilliantly and the children all liked him, he had birthday treats and Christmas presents from them all.He did his job until shortly before he died, and was by then in his seventies.

the local lollipop lady in my village saved my son from getting knocked down by a bus!! I walked my son to school and waited whilst the lollipop lady saw him across the road and a bus was speeding towards the crossing oblivious to the lollipop lady standing in the middle of the road holding her stick whilst my son was crossing the road...she quickly stopped my son from crossing any further and stood there holding her lollipop and shouting ...the bus screeched to a halt narrowly missing her....the driver got a good telling off! the driver was also reported to the bus company by me and he lost his job due to careless driving ...if the lollipop lady hadnt been there my son would certainly have been seriously injured or killed!!

MY lollipop lady was lovely.
Kind, jolly and reassuring when I first started walking home alone in the 1960's
The funniest thing was how our Labrador/Collie cross who picked up on the way that the crossing worked, and used to use the lollipop lady to visit the local butcher's shop on his own. He would take himself to the pavement's edge and sit patiently till she crossed him over. Then he'd sit patiently outside the butcher's shop till he got a treat, and then he'd reverse the whole process and come home!
Don't know what he'd have done if he'd got held up at the butchers!

In the late 1990s there were cuts locally on the lollipop service. My dad was a deputy head at the time in a primary school. A group of parents suggested the teachers had a rota for being lollipop people! This suggestion did not go down well!

A pity really that parents and teachers didn't work something out between them! The sixth formers who did it enjoyed it a lot.

I grew up in Germany (Dad worked with British Army) and when we moved to the UK my Secondary school had a Lollipop Man... I had no idea of the concept and thought it was a great idea!
He was always smiling and friendly even in bad weather, and I'm sure the sight of his hi-viz coat would make traffic slow, and he'd also keep the kids in check and make sure they weren't being daft and dashing across the road.
I live round the corner from a secondary school now, and have seen some really close 'near-misses' as the children just stop out without looking, push and shove each other off the pavement and are too engrossed in their phones to check for traffic. They could do with fettling by a Lollipop person!

We called ours 'Lolly' when I was a child.

Our local lollipop lady, Jean, probably saved herself, me (and the children I childminded) from death or serious injury some twenty years ago.

Jean had stepped in to the road to shepherd myself and others across as we returned home on foot from the school run, when a car approached at high speed, obviously with the intent of not stopping.

She had the presence of mind not to freeze but to usher us gently backwards out of the path of the car.
The driver gestured obscenely at us as he passed within inches of us. He was gone before we got his full number plate details.

I went home for a much needed cup of sweet tea for shock, but Jean had to carry on working as usual until all the children and adults were safely across.

Jean served the local community splendidly for many, many years, only retiring a few years ago. A true unsung heroine.

There was something very comforting about having our lollipop lady see us across the road when we were kids - she was like a mother hen with her baby chicks.

There was a black dog that used to live on the estate near the crossing and he would often cross with us all (this was in the days when dogs were just allowed to wander where ever they wanted to!).

I remember queueing in the newsagents to buy my Jackie comic and looking out of the window towards the crossing; the black dog approached the lollipop lady on his own (no kids). He stood at her side, glancing up at her face every now and then. She hesitated for a while, then stopped the traffic for him to cross. It was lovely to watch and, as an animal lover myself, she gained extra kudos for following her heart :-D

My grandad was a lollypop man for the primary school around the corner from his flat. He did it for several years in the '60s and was known as 'Happy Harry' by the children.

My Grandad was a lollipop man in the 1960's in Brockley, SE London. He had officially retired from the S.E. Railway having worked his way up to being a steam train driver. He took his lollipop duties very seriously and woe betide any driver who tried to ignore him as he was shepherding the children across the road. I remember being so proud of him when I visited and saw his metal lollipop pole propped up in the hall! And the children all loved him to bits....

Our local lollipop man retired recently and he was made the guest of honour at the school children's assembly. He was presented with lots of cards made by the children and lots of presents. More presents were given to him by lots of parents at home time and he also featured on TV in a programme about our local council.

LOL I won't win here. We never had lollipop wo/men - and walked to school on our own from Year 1- and nobody ever worried about it.

There was always a lollipop lady when I used to walk my children to school, she was called Annie and all the kids and mums knew her. She was great because she would also remind them of the green cross code when crossing so that they knew not every road had a lollipop lady making it safe to.just walk across. She was a part of the kids day. When I take my granddaughter now there isn't anyone doing this job because the council overcomplicated the job description to such an extent that it's not financially viable to have them, my daughter is on the council and trying to sort this though as its what the communities want and she remembers the value of what they do. It's also.I think.such a lovely job for somebody local.who is retired, keeps you young

Last week I went to our local park with my daughter and grandkids who were visiting. We started chatting to a dad and a gran who were there with other children and got on to the subject of our Lollipop lady. She was there when we moved to the village in 1983 and is still working. The other gran said that she used to cross her son over the road and he is about to celebrate his 60th birthday!! Suspect she must be one of the longest serving L/pop people in the country.

Our lollipop man was called Tommy a kind soft spoken gentle man everyone's idea of a perfect grandad. At Christmas time I don't know how he got home with the huge pile of presents he received not just from the pupils but also all the elderly people he helped cross this busy road. I have very fond memories of him and was really upset when he passed on.

I went to school in the sixties. We had a main road to cross. There were two lollipop men. One was outside the posh girls school, and the other one was further away, and he was for our school. We used to try and cross with the first one as it was more convenient. He would shout at us and refuse to stop the traffic. We had to wait until one of the posh girls wanted to cross, then we'd walk with her! What a farce!