Dr John Ashton talks a lot of sense

He is Cumbria's public health chief and visiting professor to Cumbria University

An article about his views in the Westmorland Gazette at the weekend is available in a more sensationalised version on-line - why do they do it (shame on you Ian Boydon)?

They report:

" Dr Ashton wants schools and local authorities to collaborate to set up no stopping areas outside the school gates to encourage more pupil exercise.

“We need to discourage the school run,” he said. “Parents should not be able to be allowed to drop their children off outside school, they should have to drop them off about a five-minute walk away to force them to have some exercise.” He also argued for more cycle paths to be built. "

This makes a lot of sense. Not only will the parents be encouraged to get their children to exercise more but in encourages other things.

The children would gain in self esteem by being treated as responsible. In the States, when I lived there, even the Road Crossings were supervised by children as young as ten. Here in this country don't we discourage children to grow up by running around after them. They seem to dictate what they should have - be taken to school, yet if they choose to take off away from home in the evenings, then we let them.

Getting the children to be incharge of getting themselves to schoo; would free up parents to do useful things elsewhere.

I'm reminded of a friend of mine, Irene of Ulverston cooking fame - brought up in Indonesia - who walked nine miles to get to school and that was on top of doing duties around her parents farm. This does the world of good in developing self reliance.

For my part my parents encouraged this kind of thing extensively:

Traveling on my own at the age of eleven from Paris to Birmingham and this was by train and boat.

Being posted on the train across France to the boat by my mother, then train up to London, then the most demanding crossing from Victoria station to Euston by tube to catch the train again to Birmingham where I was met by my father.

During this trip I managed to briefly loose my way on the underground, going the wrong way. But for me I had a fantastic trip on the boat when I was welcomed on to the 'bridge' by the captain and allowed to use the binoculars. I was then allowed to find my way down to the engine room and give the engineer messages of hope we were doing in our 'race' with another boat for the English port. This would be imaginable today.

One thing I'm hoping the poor economy and lack of funds will do is to give us back responsibility for taking care of ourselves - something that has been stolen from us by the attitude of government.