Not ready

It's appalling to learn that so many children starting school nowadays lack all sorts of basic skills and abilities like using the toilet, climbing a staircase, reading books, or even getting dressed.

Their deficiencies are so common that the government is to introduce a checklist of skills that children should possess by the time they start school.

Teachers are increasingly finding that on top of their normal teaching functions they're having to do things like changing nappies and helping children up the stairs - things parents should have taken care of long before start of school.

As I recall from my early schooldays, there weren't any children who lacked such basic skills. It would have been totally shocking if they had. My mother obviously had a very clear idea of what school readiness meant, and would have been mortified if I'd turned up at school in nappies.

It seems a lot of young children are simply not getting enough exercise and not using their muscles enough to strengthen them because they spend so much time looking at screens.

While nine out of ten parents considered their child ready for school, teachers said one in three children weren't. Some parental education is plainly much needed.

Childhood blanks

It suddenly came to me that I know next to nothing about my early childhood. My mum was very silent about a lot of things (like the second world war and her personal ailments) and my infancy was one of them.

There are so many unanswered questions that only now occur to me. For instance:

• Did she conceive easily?
• Was her pregnancy easy or difficult?
• Did she have a miscarriage?
• How long was she in labour?
• Was it an easy birth or were there complications?
• Did she have a a caesarean?
• Was I an easy or difficult baby?
• Did she adjust easily to being a parent?
• Did my father give her enough help?

I have some of the answers but mostly I'm in the dark. I assume she got pregnant easily because I was born very soon after the war (March 1947). As far as I know it was an easy birth and she didn't need a caesarean. And presumably I was an easy, well-behaved baby but maybe she just preferred not to remember what a pain in the arse I was. But I didn't speak until my sister appeared in April 1949 (it must have been the excitement of getting a sister).

So in general my early childhood is a bit of a mystery. All I really know for certain is that my mum got pregnant, gave birth to me and changed a lot of nappies (and they were the old-style cloth nappies, long before disposable nappies came on the scene).

Unanswered questions - the story of my life.