When Penny Holland wrote her infamous book, We Don't Play with Guns Here, she challenged the zero-tolerance approach to gun and weapon play that was held by many early years professionals. It was in 2003 when Holland, a lecturer in early childhood studies at London Metropolitan University, published the findings of her action research with an under-fives centre in inner-city London where the ban on gun, weapon and war play was lifted. Speaking to Nursery World in 2000 about her initial findings, Holland said that far from being a slippery slope towards violent behaviour, it led to an outpouring of imaginative play. ‘Gun law and unbridled violence did not break out in the nursery,’ she said. ‘We saw a wealth of positive play.’
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