Series 2, Episode 20: Toothbrushes

Bonjour! It’s Nancy here – from the soon-to-be world famous pop group Nancy and the Meerkats!

After our first record “Put Your Paws Up” became a massive hit, we’re off on a huge tour of the UK!

We haven’t quite made it to stadium status yet – some of the venues are more Weeny than Wembley – but I’m going to be letting you know what’s been going on each day in my journal for Fun Kids!

The tour is going amazing so far! Well, on stage it is anyway… behind the scenes is, erm, a little less so perhaps…

In fact, I nearly had a fall out with Big Joe earlier – he was claiming that I had bad breath!

Bad breath? Moi? The dazzling diva dog? Style icon? Singer with a million fans?

Actually, thinking about it, it could have been one of those cans of dog food I had earlier – you know, the ones Kitty Perry used to play a trick on us?

Apparently Meaty Woof Chunks in Marrowbone jelly has quite strong smell – who knew?

Anyway, Big Joe sent me off with a toothbrush and the strongest toothpaste he had and told me to get scrubbing!

It got me thinking about just how handy toothbrushes are…

I asked Big Joe how they were invented and he said that it was the idea of William Addis when he ended up in prison in 1770!

Apparently he had quite a lot of time on his hands and thought it was pretty yucky how people were cleaning their teeth – they’d usually just rub their teeth with soot or a salty rag!

Addis looked how a broom was put together and invented the toothbrush using a similar technique! I guess you can invent things anywhere – and you can take an idea for one thing and transfer it to something else!

He set up a business after he got out of prison in 1780 and made cheap ones with pig bristles and expensive ones using badger hair – and the idea caught on!