Early in my tax career, in my role as stenographer, porter and punkawallah to the great and the good, I was instructed to join one of the senior partners at a meeting with Roy E. Disney’s right-hand man. The conversation was going well (I had a walk-on part taking notes and fluttering my eyelashes, or whatever pseudo secretaries were supposed to do in those days) until the partner dropped a fatal clanger. Discussing the need for substance in the international structuring of the proposed investment, he mentioned that the tax authorities did not take kindly to…wait for it…Mickey Mouse Companies. As the orchestral tumult of Fantasia’s  Sorcerer’s Apprentice banged about inside my head, I sheepishly looked up to observe the silent visitor barely controlling his taut facial muscles. “Please do not refer to Mickey in that way,” he eventually complained. “Mickey is very close to our hearts.”

I recalled that incident recently on a rare visit to a movie theatre (my cinematic repertoire over the last decade has been generally restricted to Messrs Batman, Bond and Potter in various incarnations, shapes and sizes). The occasion was the local release of “Saving Mr. Banks”, loosely based on the negotiations, over half a century ago,  between Walt Disney (uncle of the famous Roy)  and PL Travers for the film rights to Mary Poppins. History is written by the victors and this was a Walt Disney production, so I suppose, even though this was a live-action movie about the making of a live-action movie,  I should not have been surprised to see that bloody mouse coming out of the woodwork at every opportunity, not to mention Walt’s (you have to call him Walt – Mr Disney, we are comfortingly told,  was his father) repeated declaration that Mickey is family.

Rereading the first two books on which Mary Poppins was based before attending the movie, I was reminded how much children’s literature has changed during my lifetime. Although not in the same league as Noddy or Tintin, Poppins has its moments of political incorrectness. An example was the housekeeper’s objection to  the soot-encrusted Chimney Sweep (not Dick Van Dyke’s Bert – Julie Andrews’ platonic friend – who was an amalgam) grabbing her arm: “Ow! Let me go, you Hindoo!” Now, two exclamation marks in one short exclamation is unfortunate, but use of the ancient derogatory form of “Hindu” is unforgivable. Nobody would, for very good reasons, get away with that sort of thing today nor, evidently, for that matter, making disparaging comments about an oversized rodent. However, it would seem some things are still fair game. And one of them is “close to my heart”.

Mr Banks of the books is in a perpetually bad mood (the title of the film alludes to that, but I am not in the mood for spoiler alerts so prospective cinema-goers fear not); if it is not because the household gopher has brushed his bowler hat with  polish, it is because he has prepared him non-matching shoes. His biggest blow-out however is over his mislaid bag which his goofy wife locates in the study. Demanding to know who had moved it there, she replies: “You did, my dear, WHEN YOU TOOK THE INCOME TAX PAPERS OUT OF IT LAST NIGHT”. Later in the book she refers to “that AWFUL INCOME TAX”. Say no more; ignorant cow.

I must say that I do not remember many protests against Mrs Travers’s racial prejudice but, one thing is for sure,  there was not even a murmur over her subversive statements about taxation. Isn’t it bad enough that, as kids growing up, we burned with resentment over the annual  sacrifice of a whole early evening’s Children’s TV in favour of a load of boring nonsense called the Budget (in a dreaded election year that crime was committed twice)? Is it really appropriate for our children’s literature to be laced, Tea Party style,  with incitement to revolt? And what are they supposed to be revolting against (as French students have been asked many times in their history)?

Tax is an essential part of modern civilization. Tax is of the people, by the people, for the people.  Tax is no less critical to the moral fibre of 21st century society than Freedom, Democracy and Mandela. But we continue to educate our kids to write it off as bad. (Please note: tax accountants have not yet found a way to write-off taxation but I can assure you, as the consummate hypocrites we do not admit to being,  we are working on it). The time has surely come to excommunicate those who denigrate taxation. It is time for our youth to sport tee-shirts announcing: “My Friend is a Taxpayer” or “Tax is Beautiful” or, for the truly courageous, “I Believe in Safe Tax”.

While, thankfully,  the time came long ago for the banishment of racism and mockery of the afflicted, I want to stick my neck out and make one exception: Americans (other than Meryl Streep) trying to imitate an English accent. Such people should be pilloried until they give up or die or both. The most dreadful specimen in movie history was, of course, Dick Van Dyke’s diabolical cockney cock-up in Mary Poppins. It bothered me when I saw the movie as a 6 year-old and it still bothers me today. But, in the Disney World, there is one thing perhaps worse. Exactly 10 years ago this month, our family spent a week in Orlando. Despite the cynicism that, I am informed by friends and family alike, oozes out of my very essence (I am sure they are wrong), that was one of the most amazing weeks of my life, not to mention that of the kids. A few years previously we had been to EuroDisney in Paris. Mickey Mouse and Merlin in French? Forget your husband’s bag, Mrs Banks. Why can we never find a guillotine (or better still, an atom bomb) when we need one?