Risking your kids

Friday, November 14th, 2008

I suppose when I look back on it, I should have been prosecuted for some of the things I have done with my kids. Look at this:

Well, Peter wasn't used to steam engines so when we heard that the 'Duchess of Hamilton' was making a come by, we all went up to the tracks to see it.

I told him to stand back a bit and he did. But how else was he going to capture the smell and the noise of a steam engine thundering by?

You may say that girls are different, but I don't see why.

Three of the daftest things I have ever done with the pair of them was to go up the Lord's Rake on Scafell in snow for today it is considered out of bounds to all but experienced climbers even in summer, then climbing the convex snow dome out of Striding Edge to the summit of Helvellyn, kicking snow steps all the way (one slip there and you are on your way to Heaven or, in my case, Hell) and finally along the Crib Goch ridge in high wind en route for Snowdon. But my kids did not like simple hill walking, they liked rocks and wind.

Then there is 156 mph down the motorway in a BMW. They loved it and so did I. You have to be careful though for there are so many idiots on the road. And then there is this:

They are within feet of a 100 foot drop. But how else are you going to teach them about danger without giving them a taste of it? For sure as hell, they won't listen to theory, they need to understand danger and feel it. A fence across that hole would have ruined the whole thing.

Well they are fit and alive right now and I fully acknowledge that maybe I was a bit silly at times but it has turned out for the good. Maybe we were lucky.