THE father of a four-year-old wept tears of unashamed joy upon realising he will never watch Peppa Pig again for the rest of his life.

Tom Booker of Stafford at first did not react when his youngest daughter said ‘Don’t like Peppa, Ben & Holly instead,’ then fell to his knees with the revelation that his 12-year ordeal was finally over.

He said: “Oh God, can it be true? Am I free of this yoke of porcine tyranny at last?

“I was just a young man back in 2005 when I put it on to calm my first child, who is now in secondary school. It seemed harmless. Even witty.

“I did not understand, back then, that I would come to know those 208 episodes better than I know any work of art or literature. I no longer remember a word of Middlemarch. Grandpa’s Little Train overwrote it long ago.

“Farewell, Mister Skinnylegs. Goodbye, Foggy Day. Sayonara, Sun, Sea and Snow, which is where the show jumped the shark in my opinion.

“Today, I become once again a man.”