An interesting technique

I was reading through last Tuesday's Grocott's (May 22) today and particularly enjoyed one article, "Fly me to the fun" on page 6, about the recent Aviation Day/Fly-in. The story used the technique of telling the story from the point of view of a visitor to the airshow: in this case, a three-year-old boy.

I think the technique helped to capture the childlike wonder one can feel at events like this, and brought readers closer to the action on the airfield. Unfortunately, the technique wasn't executed perfectly, though, and by the end of the lead paragraph I was left wondering what "Jimbo jets" and heliqwaqwas" were, before realising they were poor attempts at writing down the kid's baby talk. It's easy for this kind of writing to get patronising, or to jump in and out of the participant's viewpoint in an erratic way that simply confuses the reader. But I was still impressed with the overall idea of telling the story from a participant's perspective, rather than the traditional "all-seeing journalist" approach.