'No, you can't dress up as Delia!' Lorraine Candy on why World Book Day costumes are a nightmare for working mothers...

Please sign my new petition. It’s controversial, and signing it will make you really unpopular — more unpopular than suggesting new mums don’t have to breastfeed if they don’t want to.
Told you it was controversial. Ready? I’m petitioning to get World Book Day banned. Abolished for ever.
Cover your ears quickly, J K Rowling. Look away now, Judith Kerr, because unless either of you can fashion a white witch costume from a single sheet, I don’t care what you have to say about the merits of this annual costume drama.

Ban World Book Day! Because where is a parent supposed to find a sword last minute?

Unless you can look with a completely straight face at an amateurish Gruffalo costume made of an old colander, a loo roll tube, some string and a mis-matching pair of gloves, you have no business campaigning for World Book Day to continue.
Can you buy a curly blue wig after 9pm and before 6am? Thought not.
After the parental stress of last Friday morning, I’m of the opinion that World Book Day can take its invitation to ‘join the word herd’ and pop it in the same place we sometimes put baby Mabel’s emergency paracetamol when she won’t swallow it.
WBD, when children are asked to pick a favourite character from a book and go to school dressed as it, is a working mum’s tormentor.
Yes, I know non-working mums have to do it, too, but they probably don’t suffer the self-induced guilt a working mum does when she realises she’s forgotten to get a vital outfit accessory (you can’t be Thing One without a blue wig).

Which character will your child go as? Voldemort or Lorraine's son's choice - Delia Smith

They’re not keeping themselves awake at night in a frenzied pit of self-judgment, mentally listing the relentless maternal failures caused by trying to tick off everything on the work and domestic to-do list. WBD is 'just one more thing', as many a time-poor working mother has said to me.
The premise of WBD is obviously to be applauded and celebrated. Encourage your children to read more? What’s not to like?

But it’s the chaotic shenanigans of choosing a WBD character that vexes me. The question 'who shall I go as?' brings me out in a cold sweat because I am running out of practical suggestions as the childhood years roll on.
I’m tempted to suggest Rasputin, Hannibal Lecter or Jesus, but I’m too tired/busy to offer up anything more imaginative than Harry Potter, Hermione or Bozo (Gracie, nine, is reading Hang In There Bozo by Lauren Child).
Mr Candy just rolls his eyes. 'Seems as if I chose the wrong decade to give up drinking,' he murmurs, reaching for the bottle as I ferret around on eBay in search of all manner of peculiar clothing.
Early one morning before a packed work day, you’d have found me in the loft, rummaging through our ancient dressing-up box in search of a lion mask (circa 2006).
Minutes later, I had to break the news to my six-year-old son that he couldn’t go as Delia Smith (he’s a big fan). All I can offer up as a reason why not is 'because it’s weird'.
WBD is testing my full range of parental skills.
As for Gracie, she had gone through six widely varied character choices before opting for  Dr Seuss’s Thing One, to accompany her friend as Thing Two (she decided this the day before, and was inconsolable when I said I didn’t have a wig ready to go).
My patience was running out.

Challenge: Lorraine's daughter will be dressing as the White Witch from the Chronicles of Narnia

My more reasonable eldest, aged ten, had her heart set on the White Witch from The Chronicles Of Narnia. We made (when I say 'made', I mean ‘bought’) a costume and dug out all the white glitter we could find.
Everything was going well until she sat on her elaborate head-dress and snapped it in half, ten minutes before we left for school.
If I didn’t work, I wonder, would I be less aggravated by the demands of WBD? Maybe I would see it in a more joyous light — the one in which it was no doubt intended.
After all, isn’t this what I looked forward to when I first became a mum? Contrary to popular opinion, I love a bit of arts and crafts.
But life snuck up on me and some weeks I can’t seem to make it all balance out or find joy in the working day or the family day.
Maybe I am reaching the point, as the children grow older, where something has to give.