HAVE you ever wondered why the many thousands of abandoned single mothers struggling to cope on their own have never got round to forming a Mothers 4 Justice group? Probably because they are far too busy in between work, school run and feeding and caring for their children to go off climbing cathedrals or flour-bombing the Prime Minister.

While I have every sympathy, and admiration, for dedicated and hard-done-by fathers fighting to maintain regular contact with their children, the attention-seeking antics of Fathers 4 Justice members, who burst into the Communion service at York Minster this week and clambered onto the roof, do no-one any favours.

The banner they unfurled from the top of the cathedral was revealing. "In the name of the Father," it said. No mention of the children, then. The problem with Fathers4Justice is they talk about their wants, needs and rights of equal access, rather than what is necessarily best for the child.

Of course children need their fathers. But they can also do without having their lives cut in two, constantly shuffling between one place and another, dividing their friendships, social lives and possessions to satisfy the demands of warring adults. Youngsters are not possessions, like houses or shares, the proceeds of which can be neatly split down the middle.

Life is a lot more complex than that, and that is what our courts, in very difficult circumstances, have to grapple with. I have no doubt that, sadly, there are decent, responsible fathers who lose out in the process.

But of the 40 per cent of men who lose touch with their "first families" after divorce, just one in four have suffered problems getting access through the courts. Many of the remainder have simply walked away from their responsibilities.

If Fathers 4 Justice and their supporters really have the nation's children's best interests at heart they should be addressing the much greater problem of feckless fathers who discard their offspring and don't pay proper maintenance.

If ever a Children 4 Justice group was formed, I bet its main priority would not be demanding equal access rights for adults. Children 4 Justice would be appealing to parents to be more committed to their marriages and relationships and, where that fails, calling for them to at least stay on good terms. In the name of the children.

TODAY'S over-50s are more adventurous than ever. They are dressing like 18-year-olds, buying motorbikes and taking gap years, according to research published this week.

I don't know about riding motorbikes and dressing like 18-year-olds, but the gap year makes perfect sense to me. I have always thought gap years are wasted on the young. What, exactly, are they taking a gap from? Lying in bed until midday on Saturday mornings? If anyone has earned the right to a year's break it is the over-50s. What better time to set off travelling round the world than after 30 years or so of hard work and raising a family?

And when it comes to helping to build wells in the Sudan or caring for young orphans in Somalia, don't our highly skilled and experienced over-50s have so much more to offer a deprived Third World community than a wet-behind-the-ears teenager who can barely sort out his own laundry?