Why today's children need a little danger

That's why modern playgrounds are useless.

They're too safe. Swings don't swing high. Seesaws are banned. Slides are barely feet off the ground and the whole area is cushioned so children don't break their necks, their arms or even a finger nail, but get safely back on to their feet.

So what does that teach them? Not much. Even the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has apparently admitted that our concerns with safety might have gone too far.

Good news, then, that designers have come up with a new generation of adventure playground. Called the Alien, it looks like a space station and includes ladders and ropes that are even - gosh - a bit risky,.

And about time too.

Children need to learn about balancing risk and ability, need to explore their own limits. Need to know, too, that with a bit of nerve and a bit of practice, what seemed like an unclimbable wall or terrifying jump can be managed. The resulting pride and confidence is worth the bruises.

And I speak as a mother who wore a small track back and forth to Casualty as my boys tested their physical skills to bone-breaking limit.

A playground with a few risks is a wonderful training ground. It encourages children to reach further, try harder, push themselves a bit more. And, occasionally, ignore the bruises, pick themselves up and start again.

Not a bad lesson in life, is it?

But over the last few years, we've made everything so safe that there's not a risk worth taking. We've wrapped our children in cotton wool and limited their freedom so much, we might just as well have bound their feet Chinese-style. No wonder they'd rather play with their computers.

And what happens?

As soon as they're old enough, children find their own danger - they play chicken on railway lines, take to drink or drugs or under-age sex, they steal cars, drive too fast. They dive hell for leather into any risk as they can find, to make up for their coddled childhoods. But now a number of local authorities have shown an interest in the new adventure playgrounds.

Norway has a playground especially designed to be full of risks. Children love it, especially the 40-ft rope swing. In three years the only injury has been one broken arm.

Even if it's your child's arm, it still sounds like a risk worth taking.

WELL thank you Jerry Hall... All over the country, women of a certain age have been digging out their summer clothes and feeling miserable, as ever more expanses of white and flabby flesh are exposed to the sun and ridicule.

So heartening then to see large pictures of the still stunning Jerry complete with orange peel thighs that are definitely not as smooth and firm as they used to be.

If Jerry can't manage it, then there's no disgrace for the rest of us.

EVERY one of us in this house has in the last few years been operated on at the St John of God Hospital in Scorton, near Richmond.

We've practically got a family season ticket. So much so, that when rumours started circulating that it might close, the hospital wrote to us - as regulars - to say there was no truth in the rumours, absolutely no truth at all. It was going to be business as usual. And if any of our wonky knees gave way again, we could just limp right along and get them fixed.

Until last week, of course, when it announced it was closing the surgical wing.

This is the same surgical wing that they boast of being "state of the art"... "amongst the finest in the country" ... with "one of the most advanced anaesthetic systems in use anywhere in the UK." Opened in 1987, it has recently had more than £2m of investment.

Now the hospital is going to concentrate on Alzheimer sufferers and it means, no doubt, that all those wonderful facilities - not to mention the skilled staff operating in them - will be redundant.

There's undoubtedly a great need for more facilities for Alzheimer sufferers. But it seems odd that St John of God has realised this so suddenly and dramatically only in the last few weeks.

THE boys who killed James Bulger are now young men. Their "freedom" is to live in constant fear of discovery when a brainless mob could quite easily tear them limb from limb.

Nothing can ease the pain of James's mother, not even time. After eight years, it is clear that her distress is as raw and terrible as ever and our hearts go out to her.

But those vowing to hunt down Venables and Thompson do not know the difference between justice and revenge.

And until we can tell that difference, we cannot pretend to be a civilised society.

THE county that dare not say its name...As foot-and-mouth continues to spread in North Yorkshire, we've heard of people sharing a postcode with infected areas being refused permission to go to America.

It was bad enough in Wales last week. They hadn't quite closed the borders, but as new cases in Skipton and Settle made the news, the owner of our holiday cottage pleaded with us.

"If you're talking to the neighbouring farmers, " she said, "don't tell them where you're from. Pretend you're from Buckinghamshire instead."

OK, so some of the girls look suspiciously muscled. Others seem more interested in sponsorship deals than reaching the finals, but after a winter of pale skinny models, of actresses fading away in front of our eyes - their skeletal frames barely able to support their empty heads - isn't it wonderful to see all those tennis players looking bronzed, fit and healthy, and as if they've lunched on a damn sight more than a lettuce leaf and a glass of water.