Thought provoking.

I was listening to Radio 4's PM programme in the car on the way home today and they were talking about Leona Lewis writing her autobiography at the age of 23. they interviewed the author and commentator Matthew Parris, who made the interesting point that maybe we should all write down our views (not feelings) on the world, because we forgetso quickly what we once thought or accepted as normal.

He gave the example of how few of us can remember what we thought when 18, and whilst sat at traffic lights, I pondered on this. I know a lot of teenagers around 16-20, but I can't say that i can think like them anymore, or even visualise their hopes and dreams.

And when I think back to when I was 18, way back in 1999-2000, it is tinged with the actuality of what happened. The dreams of studying medicine and the reality of doing a Biology degreee, the dreams of what I could/would do, and with whom, and the reality which was so different.

It was not just the hopes, dreams, and opportunities that I had, but also the changes to me, to life, and to the world which I could not have forseen which have changed my thinking, changed the world and changed my life since that point - the friendships, relationships, deaths, opportunities, disappointments and such like.

Maybe this is a good frame of mind to start my bnext block, OBstetrics and Gynaecology, one half at least of which is about the hopes, dreams and opportunities , and a child who can be anything it wants to be..........oir it could be like the 'child' today jailed for culpible homicide at the high court, of whom the Judge said:

I accept that the very early years of your life, prior to your adoption, were emotionally traumatic; having been born in Corntonvale Prison to mother then addicted to heroin and a father who had himself died in police custody. He had apparently been physically abusive to you even although you must have been little more than a baby. It is hard to image a more deprived and tragic start to life.

However, it is equally clear that your adoptive parents tried very hard to compensate
for that early start by providing you with a comfortable lifestyle and the potential for a good education and future life.

Whatever the psychological reasons for it, you spurned their attempts to help you
and engaged in a life of substance, drug and alcohol abuse and, ultimately, crime.
This lifestyle culminated in the death of another young man at the start of his adult
life.

What must the views and opinions fo this young teenager be, and how alien to most of society must their thoughts be to do this, and yet, their hopes and dreams may be very similar to many other people - a partner, family, money, job, house.......I guess we can only hope that prison rehabilitates.