When I was at primary school we had a lollipop man whom we used to call, if memory serves, Smiler. This, of course, was because when primary school children discover sarcasm and irony, they just can’t get enough of it.

Smiler, as his name suggests, didn’t smile very often. I remember him as a glowering, luminous-yellow wardrobe of a man, with shuddering jowls and a baleful stare that could turn you to stone on the kerb, should you look like you were about to set foot on the carriageway before he’d given the nod.

Thinking back, he probably couldn’t be blamed for not smiling much, as he had to put up with sarcastic primary school children gurning at him twice a day.

Coincidentally, the crossing was in front of a shop which we called Happy Harry’s. Harry, you will not be surprised to learn, was not very happy at all, possibly for the same reasons that Smiler never smiled.

After leaving primary school, there was a gap of more than a quarter of a century before I had cause to encounter a lollipop personage again, this one being the lady who helps our children cross the road on the way to school every morning.

A more different lollipop person than Smiler could not be found than this lady, who genuinely smiles and has not, as far as I know, been given a sarcastic nickname by the children.

There was much consternation among the walk-to-school brigade just after Christmas, because our lollipop lady was absent for a while. When she came back, it turned out she’d been laid low with an unpleasant illness.

We’re glad to have her back, and that, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that she said one of the things that got her through her illness was the wit and wisdom purveyed on a weekly basis in this little corner of the Telegraph & Argus.

So this week I write in praise of the fine body of men and women who go out in all weathers to help our children safely cross the road to and from school every morning and late afternoon.

They’re as English as tuppence and one of the things that makes this country great, by God.

That round-headed staff wielded by the lollipop person is like a beacon of warmth and safety, like a sword of security shining proudly through the rain and darkness. We should cherish our lollipop men and women, because only they are able to halt the relentless flow of traffic that threatens to subsume this island nation. With one outstretched lollipop and a hard stare, they take the wind from the sails of even the most rushed, stressed motorist and cause them to idle patiently while boys and girls stream across the highway to their place of learning.

Three cheers for lollipop folks. Long may they ease our passage.