In writing a manual on how to bring up her daughter while on her deathbed, Helen Harcombe reminds us of the enduring job of being a parent.

BEING a parent never stops - even when you're dead. Book shops have shelves and shelves of expert instructions on how to bring up your child, but one young mother might have beaten them all in a few pages of a jotting pad.

When Helen Harcombe knew she was dying, she started scribbling notes for husband Antony on how to bring up their seven-year-old daughter Ffion. The notes cover everything from dinner money, school shoes and how to deal with nits, to the importance of plenty of fruit and veg and what sort of things to put in her Christmas stocking.

Its very everydayness and random thoughts makes it desperately moving. It's the last rushed attempts of a mother to do her best for her child. A more final version of those panicky conversations, lists and instructions we all have at airports or railways stations when we're seeing our children off on a big adventure. Only this time it's mother who's going.

Other parents in similar circumstances have done similar things - letters and notes; videos and photo albums; birthday cards for the next however many years. It's very little to do with a parent's wish to be remembered, but far more to do with doing the best for a child, helping them with the business of growing up.

Parents have two main responsibilities to their children. Firstly, to ensure they reach maturity and independence. Secondly, to make them feel loved and valued and sure of their place in the world.

Even though her mother is dead, young Ffion Harcombe can certainly feel that and, as long as her dad follows the instructions, she'll be happy healthy, neatly dressed - and a good little swimmer too.

Pity for Posh

NEVER thought the day would come but I almost feel sorry for Victoria Beckham. Whatever the rights and wrongs of their marriage - and by building up a huge business empire based on their image as the perfect couple, they're certainly asking for trouble - they are a couple as well as a brand.

And now they've been let down by the person they trusted most - the nanny who cared for their children, shared their lives and then spilled the beans. Loyalty, discretion, or just plain good manners to an employer are apparently now ridiculously old fashioned when there's money to be made.

I hope nanny Abbie Gibson was paid well for her revelations - because I don't suppose anyone's going to be too keen to give her a nannying job again.

THE Professional Golfers' Association has just appointed its first woman captain - Beverly Lewis: golfer, lecturer, writer and BBC commentator.

Also, Michelle Wie, the 15-year-old golf prodigy from Hawaii, will probably play at the Open in St Andrews this summer, which has always been strictly off limits for women.

It's only five years since a woman working for the PGA was sent home from the office for the sin - shock horror - of wearing trousers to work. But now it's only the snobbiest golf clubs who refuse to admit women.

Golf, it seems, is finally creeping into the 21st century. The world is indeed turning.

MAYBE God thought my soul needed a bit of extra attention, but on Sunday I found myself doubly blessed - literally. A long planned short break in Rome with an old friend coincided with the inauguration of the new Pope Benedict XVI and, almost by mistake and slightly to our surprise, we found ourselves there for the service - right in the middle of St Peter' s Square with about 350,000 others.

Walking past the embassies we'd seen lots of very grand people - men in white ties and court dress, ladies in towering mantillas, getting into posh cars that roared through the narrow cobbled streets with police motorbike outriders.

The service was amazing, the enthusiasm of the congregation very moving. (Though a group of Germans who insisted on keeping their banners raised and blocking the view of a few thousand people behind them stretched Christian charity to its limits and nearly caused an international incident.) During his long sermon, you were often aware that the new Pope is an old man.

But at the end, when he buzzed round the square in the new Pope mobile - a glorified white jeep with no roof, no bullet proof glass - he looked as delighted and happy as a small boy as he stood clinging to the rail. And as the crowds ran this way and that to catch a glimpse of him, it was all a bit like being at a pop concert.

Even though Italian police seem to do little more than lounge around on their motor bikes, eyeing the women and smoking cigars, the organisation was brilliantly efficient - and within a quarter of an hour of the mass ending, we were well clear of the Vatican, sitting happily in a pavement bar in the sunshine, trying to take in what we'd seen.

But that was only the start of it. In the evening we stumbled across another remarkable service - sung Eucharist at the English church where the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was preaching to a congregation of locals, big wigs, lots of happy chattering children and the rather splendid Orthodox Archbishop of Eritrea, who wore sort of huge white pyjamas embroidered with gold crosses, and we all prayed for the new Pope.

It was a strange, surreal, historic and memorable day. But surrounded by the pomp and splendour of over 2,000 years of Roman history, we consoled ourselves with one cheering thought - the Anglican church had a choir, a great organist and some stirring hymns.

We might not have a Pope, but we've definitely got the best tunes.