12 June 2012

Neglect

 Oh it's so easily done. You know, you've had a hard week prime-ministering or suffering the stressful life of a prime minister's spouse so you go down to the pub in Cadsden, Buckinghamshire on a Sunday lunchtime. You guzzle a few beers and glasses of white plonk before tucking into plates of best top rump with roasted vegetables, Yorkshire pudding and lashings of gravy. You guffaw with your chums and exchange pleasantries with the bar staff.

Then it's time to go, so hiccuping and loosening one's belt one jumps in one's car and heads home.Later one discovers one has left one's eight year old daughter back at the pub. Below you can see Nancy Cameron - now aged eight - whose privileged parents left her in "The Plough Inn" for half an hour. They had forgotten about the poor little mite.
"Mummy! Daddy! Where are you?"
Hand on heart, I can honestly say that as we were raising our two children we never once left either of them in a pub, a restaurant, a public convenience, an airport, a factory, a supermarket, a church, a department store or any other such place. As responsible parents, we had this weird old-fashioned idea that it was our duty to ensure that our kids were safe at all times.

It's easy to see why Cameron and his aristocratic wife tried to keep this news secret. It happened two months ago. This is a politician who purportedly places great store on family values and yet he leaves his kid in a pub! I wonder if the social services in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire have been informed. I think poor little Nancy needs to go on the "at risk" register.

19 comments:

  1. I think you are being a little unfair YP......hummmmm perhaps playful rather than overtly unfair....
    I listened to LBC talk radio today and 30 or so people rang in with similar stories ( most a lot worse)

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  2. EARL GRAY I'm sorry John but I really have no sympathy for Cameron on this. I was never a prime minister with aides and security personnel in tow but in spite of that, before our children were teenagers, they were never, ever forgotten about or left accidentally in what could have been dangerous situations. No wonder Cameron tried to suppress this news item - hoping it would just go away. I bet the 30 who rang in were all supporters of the Monster Raving Conservative Party - making allowances for the Camerons' neglect.

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  3. Well, I do have to confess leaving Younger Daughter in M&S, Liverpool and not realising till I got to the car park in Mount Pleasant - only once though. ;)

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  4. JENNY Naughty mummy! Had you been drinking sherry?

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  5. To be fair, they'd probably forgotten that she was home from boarding school. It's so easy to lose track of your kids when you've got loads of dosh.

    I tried hard to lose our youngest several times, but never quite managed it.

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  6. I thought you would be blogging about Madonna exposing her nipple in Turkey.

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  7. SHOOTING PARROTS I know you're kidding and previous posts suggest you were a more fawning and protective father than me.
    RHYMES WITH TIPPLE Oh dear Mr Brague - you have got a low opinion of me! But unlike you I am not interested in Madonna's turkey nipple.

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  8. I wasn't being entirely untruthful. I nearly did lose my son, but not though willful neglect.

    We were on the Granada Studios tour when he was about three and he made a bolt for it under the turnstiles. The problem was that they only turned one way and I couldn't chase after him directly and by the time I got out he'd sprinted across a main road and a car park before I could catch up with him.

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  9. I agree YP.....people think you very smug if you say that you never lost your child or left them alone while you went for a drink or excused their bad behaviour 'because thats what kids do isn't it'.......I am not smug just appalled that people can be so cavalier over parenting.

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  10. What about that US mummy who left her baby on the car roof last week, apparently? No way I'm gonna vote for her!

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  11. And I've lost my car twice this week - spoilt for car parks, some would say!

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  12. LIBBY I have also been bemused by all these people who say things like - "Well that's nothing, we once left our kid in Heathrow Airport over night" or "All of us mislay our kids from time to time". Excuse me! I'm not claiming to be a saint but NO - this NEVER happened in all of our years of parenting growing children.
    BRIAN Ola Brian! Nice to see you back here. Perhaps you need to fit an electronic homing device to your vehicle. After all you are getting older and these things will happen more and more.

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  13. I'd say "well done Dave" - you almost managed to achieve something I've tried several times unsuccessfully before.... but they always find me.... and in this day and age with the advent of mobile phone technology.... you're never more than an ell oh ell smiley face away!

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  14. Sherry??? You must be joking, YP. It would have been a double brandy, could I have got my hands on such a thing at the time. ;)

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  15. It's OK YP, it was a gastro-pub....

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  16. How do you know I'm getting older?

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  17. Note to Brian: You ain't getting any younger.

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  18. Thanks. I needed that!

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  19. I think I probably did her good. The little girl I mean. She was helping the staff when they came back. An adventure, I'd call it.

    I once lost myself for 10 minutes... on Tower Hill in the heart of London. When I returned they hadn't even missed me.

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