Sir, - What is this country coming to? Are we turning into a nation of namby-pambies? Have we become incapable of seeing the wood for the trees?
A teacher has been fined £50 - seemingly he "assaulted" a boy by pulling his sideburns and slapping him across the back of the head. Incredibly, this penalty has the full approval of the National Parents' Council, whose spokesperson witters on about UN Conventions and Rights of the Child. Come on, Mrs Kilfeather, we're hardly in the Asian child-labour-in-sweatshops league, now, are we?
I tell you, if all I came home with at the end of a day at school was pulled hair and a whack across the skull (par for the course in playground activities, anyway), I would have counted myself very lucky indeed. The odd thump from a teacher did me no harm whatsoever, rather the opposite, instilling in me the qualities of discipline, industry, and respect for my elders. - Yours, etc., D. K. Henderson,
Castle Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin 3.