T wo different articles bring us back to the subject we have been discussing. Mrs Harding (Terrible Attacks on the Elderly) wants to bring back the birch, no doubt to cries of alarm from the society which has helped create the situation we are in.

Another article asks the question as to what can be done about the case of the mother jailed because her two daughters did not go to school. Firstly, the taxpayers are paying to keep her in jail and probably paying the cost of her defence and any subsequent appeal. You ask what is the "bottom line" and inadvertently you actually suggest the answer.

Both of those girls should have had a stick across their behinds when they refused to go to school and if the mother would not, or could not, do that, then the courts or schools should be given the authority to do it.

We cannot live in a society in which children do as they wish, as that mother has now discovered. My sisters and I had about the same age gap, 13 and 15, and had we refused to go to school I know what the outcome would have been. The NSPCC will of course take on their new found role of saying that smacking is wrong, but so is missing two years education and will have a far greater effect on both those girls than a cane would have done.

Spare the rod and spoil the child. All around us today we can see the living consequences of that.

I suspect that the "short, sharp, shock" we used to receive in moments of defiance would have solved the problem and saved everyone the enormous expense and drama that is now being played out.

Children should do what they are told until they are old enough and wise enough to make informed decisions. Until that time, the view of the parents must, and should, prevail. Parents have a duty to protect their children.

What is worse? A smacked bottom or an appearance in a juvenile or magistrates court? The former is direct, to the point and effective. We did not suffer from "child abuse", just briefly, an uncomfortable behind, an early bed and no tea. The court appearance goes on the CV of the child concerned and haunts them for years afterwards.

We think we know it all, look around we know nothing.

Let us get back to the old ways and cure the problems that are threatening to swamp this country.

Kate Embling (Mrs)

Thrapston Road

Oundle, Northants