Why I’ll never again leave children alone in a car

I REMEMBER reading an interview with actor Neil Morrissey (aka Bob the Builder) some years back where he spoke of his childhood as the son of Irish immigrants in Britain in the 1970s.

He described his parents’ abject lack of parenting skills and how he ended up in care as, just like many Irish of that generation (his words, not mine), Mum and Dad would head down to the pub on weekends, leaving three or four children alone in bed.They were duly reported to Social Services and hauled before Her Majesty’s Court for child neglect, quite shocked at a perceived British overreaction.

That anecdote left me seething as here was a legitimate justification for our stereotype as gormless, uneducated, drink-obsessed peasants. How could anyone be that stupid and selfish, I thought?