Are Jack and Jill over the hill?

TRADITIONAL children’s nursery rhymes could be heading for extinction, experts have warned.

Rhymes which have been passed down from parent to child for generations are being shunned for more fashionable modern alternatives, they said.

A survey by the charity Booktrust revealed they are seen as too old-fashioned by modern parents — meaning old favourites including Hey Diddle Diddle and Mary Mary Quite Contrary could be forgotten. Only 36% of the parents surveyed regularly read nursery rhymes with their children, while almost a quarter admitted to having never sung a nursery rhyme with their child.