AFLURRY of items in the news lately is enough to make you wonder if some people are safe enough to be let out on their own, let alone be in charge of children.

First a new report on the sexualisation of children has warned that manufacturers might be banned from making provocative clothing for young girls. You know – padded bras for eight-year-olds, T shirts with sexy slogans for girls not old enough to even be able to read them. Or understand the glint in a man’s eye.

And why are manufacturers making them? Because some mothers are dim and daft enough to buy them and think it’s all a bit of a joke to dress their six-year-olds like hookers.

Many of the clothes at your kids’ end of primary school party wouldn’t be out of place on your average clubber.

Are they mad? After all, it’s not the kids who go into the shops and buy this stuff. Not unless the banks have started issuing pre-schoolers with their own credit cards and making check-outs two feet lower.

Models and actresses get smaller and skinnier – size 8 is now described as “curvaceous” – and look positively pre-pubescent, while little girls look like pole dancers. No wonder we’re all confused.

When Suri Cruise is the subject of a fashion blog and David Beckham’s eight-year-old son Romeo is voted one of the best-dressed men in the world, then that world is definitely out of kilter.

Meanwhile, any reception class teacher will tell you endless tales of children arriving at school being unable to dress themselves, use a knife and fork, or hold a pencil. But it’s got worse. Now many children aren’t even toilet-trained, but are still in nappies.

Not poorly children, or children with problems or with physical disabilities – just poor saps with parents too idle to make the effort with them.

What have they been doing all day?

Not much, I guess. Like the parents in Middlesbrough who were turning up at the school gates in pyjamas.

Not just in the morning, but the end of the day too.

Increasingly, schools are given children breakfast, looking after them after school, teaching them about sex, manners, how to swim, how to play, tell the time, tie their laces. All this and the national curriculum and taking them skiing too.

We all know there’s no such thing as a perfect parent and we can all be hopeless sometimes.

But the more parents act like proper grown-up parents, the less need or opportunity there would be for the Government to interfere in our lives.

That’s got to be worth getting dressed for.

As moving as ever

THE Middleton St George Memorial Association event last weekend was as moving and as well attended as ever as veterans of the RAF and the Royal Canadian Air Force, their families and supporters gathered to pay their respects to the airmen of the Second World War.

Meanwhile, Molly Clapham rang to ask us not to forget the youngsters.

“The local air cadets were there in force and did a marvellous job. In the rain, they were down on their hands and their knees clearing up and weeding the area where ashes were going to be scattered. They were marvellous. We hear a lot of bad things about youngsters, but they were really good and I think they deserve some thanks too.”

A brilliant and simple idea

I’VE always said that allotments should be available on the National Health and now it seems, they are.

The NHS in Southampton is running a trial scheme where patients with depression spend eight weeks on regular visits to a garden nursery, getting their hands dirty and getting expert help learning about plants, how to grow things and take cuttings.

It’s a brilliant, simple idea and I’m convinced it will work for a lot of people.

Fresh air, physical exercise, actually making something grow – it can make a real difference.

Let’s hope it works and the idea spreads across the country.

Dig for victory. Dig for happiness.

A clearer head is well worth a few creaking muscles.

More miles, more money

ACCORDING to new research, people who travel the furthest to work are the ones who earn the most money.

I work from home. That explains a lot.

E coli scare

SENIOR Son was on a stag do in Hamburg last weekend, in the midst of the E coli scare. And my advice was the absolute opposite of usual.

“Avoid salads, fresh fruit, bean sprouts and anything remotely healthy,” I instructed.

He spent three days surviving on bratwurst, burgers and beer. And for once, I was almost pleased.

Accent’s on the Geordies

CHERYL Cole has a lot to answer for... Apparently, we’re all turning into Geordies. Many regional accents are dying out but according to language experts, the Geordie accent is taking over large chunks of the North – creeping north into the Borders, west into Cumbria and even pushing south down through Middlesbrough and into Yorkshire.

Another few years of this and even Cameron and Clegg will sound like Ant and Dec.

Emma Watson

ACTRESS Emma Watson better known as Harry Potter’s Hermione, has said that she thinks men are intimidated by her.

Now why ever would that be? It’s not as though she’s actually got real magic powers. No, she’s 21, looks stunning, is fiendishly clever, was the highest earning woman in Hollywood, works as a model and is the face of Lancome.

Just your average girl next door then.

Now she’s selling her parents

SARAH Ferguson, yet again, is revealing her innermost soul in a six part series for American TV in which she is filmed undergoing therapy.

Filmed? In therapy? Are there no professional ethical standards? She is being paid an alleged £200,000 for the series.

In the programme the Queen’s former daughter-in-law reveals that she has felt worthless all her life since her mother beat her because she had “the mark of the devil” on her forehead and that her father, Major Ronald Ferguson, never showed the young Sarah any love or affection.

Last year the former duchess was found to be selling access to her ex-husband. Now it looks as though she’s selling her parents as well.

She has a reputation as a great mum, but if I were her daughters, I’d be afraid, very afraid.

Backchat

Dear Sharon,
WHEN I was married five years ago, my mother gave me away and made the “father of the bride” speech.

She had brought me and my sister up on her own since our father walked out when I was a baby. I wouldn’t have dreamt of having anyone else to give me away and she gave a great speech.

Two years later she gave another speech when she married her lovely new husband Dave Andrews. She and Dave gave a speech. Dave’s son Tim gave a speech and my sister Gemma gave a speech. They were all very short and heartfelt and it was a great occasion.

I’ve been to a few weddings where the women have made speeches too. I think our days of keeping quiet are over.

Katy Hatton, by email.