On a daily basis, we hear of two-hundred-year-old horse chestnut trees being cut down in case a 'conker' falls on someone's head, or an ancient yew tree, on a corner in a village, removed because some fool drove into it at high speed and killed himself. The intimation is 'we can't sue the tree so we'll kill it'. It's a pity they don't take that attitude to drug-crazed knife-killers.

It would only take a couple or three to be transported to the Netherworld and, I believe, these creatures would realise the potential consequences of their actions and throw their blades into a river.

Discipline, an old-fashioned word; children today cannot be smacked, even by their parents. At no time may they be allowed to risk experiencing pain of any kind. What nonsense! Pain is a fact of life. The very act of producing life is painful - ask any mother!

I believe that to deprive a child of the opportunity to experience pain is as abusive as to deprive it of love. The longer one spends devoid of any experience of pain, the more frightening the prospect of pain becomes. Eventually, we will have a Europe that is inhabited by sedentary, obese individuals who are incapable of climbing a set of stairs, let alone a mountain!

Eventually, if we continue in this vein, sports will be banned, one after another, because the potential for injury is inherent in them. On the other hand, these sports generate enormous revenues so perhaps not...

Children need to be allowed to take small risks and, gradually, to learn for themselves the immutable laws of cause and effect - when climbing trees, or jumping around, a few bruises are inevitable, perhaps even a broken bone or two, on the way to learning one's physical limitations but so what? Children mend easily and never forget lessons learned this way.