The Last Bite

Fairy tales

It seems that these cash strapped times have gone unnoticed by one of the UK’s allegedly hardest working individuals; the tooth fairy. An estimated 15m milk teeth fall out each year, making an average of 42,000 ‘money drops’ as they clock on for their night time shift.

A recent study in the UK found that 70 per cent of parents pay at least £1 per tooth, up from an average of 15p in the 1960s to £1.50 today. Apparently parents in Yorkshire are the biggest tooth fairy advocates, with over 76 per cent paying at least £1 per tooth, in comparison with parents in the West Midlands where six per cent refuse to pay anything.

However, in an out-of-court settlement at the end of last year a five-year-old boy received a massive £9,000 in compensation after having to have 13 teeth extracted. The parents sued as they claimed the dentist failed to spot the caries. I wonder how much they left him under the pillow?