Silence is golden

If you sent our boys back into the past, they might notice the lack of burgers, no central heating, precious little sanitation and no designer labels. But what would REALLY shock them would be the silence. How quiet the world must have been before the days of radios, CDs and television. It would be unnatural for them.

Boys don't like silence. Boys like noise. Lots of it. All the time. Partly I blame myself.

When they were little, ever anxious to stimulate their little senses, I filled their toy boxes with things that rattled and rang, that whirred and whistled. There were noisy toys in their prams, in their buggies, on their high chairs and even - I must have been mad - on the inside of their cots. So the poor little chaps hardly knew the sound of silence.

Now they're almost grown up, they spend their free time in shops, pubs, clubs - all with music playing in the background. Background? Usually at a decibel level that leaves environmental health officers boggle eyed.

And they like the same at home.

They're so used to constant noise that a room without it is, to them, a dead room, against the natural order of things. So they come home, walk into the sitting room and put the television on, then walk out again. Into their bedrooms and put on the television there. Or the stereo. Or both simultaneously. If they stay in that room, there'll probably be the shriek and whine of a computer game while they're at it.

They're not happy until every room in the house is full of noise. There were even radios in the shower until the suction wore off and the poor fish slid, thud, into the shower tray.

Even when they're working at this computer they do so accompanied by the music from CDs (which they then leave scattered all over the desk. But that's another story.) How on earth can they concentrate? If, as often happens, the computer's speakers are on the blink, then they'll sit here with the Walkman and their headphones on. This has the added irritation that they then cannot hear

the telephone right next to them - or me screaming at them to pick it up because it's for them.

And as for the cars...Senior Son's car radio throbs so loudly to the music that when he drives past you don't so much hear the music as feel it vibrating through your bones.

But, like the fine lady upon the fine horse, they shall have music wherever they go. If they're not actually watching anything on television, maybe just sitting there reading the paper, they'll switch it to the music channel. Or, much worse, keep flipping between all sorts of music channels. Perish the thought that they should actually be able to hear themselves think.

You know when children go on these field trips and expeditions, the novelty is meant to be all that walking and exploring out in the open air. But many schools ban all personal stereos and computer games on these trips, so children actually have to endure a world of silence. This is especially good if it's at a top of a dale, at night. Scary.

If you really want to give your children an experience they've probably never known, then treat them to utter silence. It'll scare them so much, they'll probably start whistling.