Plasters, grazed knees and black eyes!

Reflecting on the moments in my own childhood that resulted in considerable stress and anxiety for my poor mother, most of them concerned myself or one of my brothers falling over or running in to something in a sudden and unexpected fashion.

It's not that we were accident prone children, it was more that we were boys who enjoyed messing around and who always massively underestimated the consequences of our actions. Thankfully today we're all fit and healthy but, back then, my mum must have torn her hair out at times at the sheer stupidness of our actions.

For instance, growing up in the countryside in a remote house, miles from the nearest doctor, we often suffered power cuts and it was on one such occasion that I decided to use a Swiss Army Knife to prise open a torch that wasn't working. The result was that Mum, having to scurry arond finding candles while dealing with three children in a pitch black house, was suddenly presented with the site of her first born bleeding profusely from the finger he had almost severed.

Other occasions that spring to mind included my youngest brother breaking his leg as a result of middle brother encouraging him to leap from a climbing frame and then whipping away the cushions as he was about to land. Then there was middle brother being knocked over and knocked out by a dog, my running in to the corner of a table and requiring stitches, my breaking my arm playing football, youngest brother smacking his head on a pavement, middle brother ending up with a black eye after running in to a car door and my taking a layer of skin off my leg on a so called 'death slide'!

None of the above, it must be said, resulted from any lack of parental care whatsover, they were just accidents that happened and we now all proudly sport the scars of a loving, boisterous and typically boyish childhood.

Nevertheless, the fact that it is national Child Safety Week this week has made me realise that, with my own child on its way in October, it's absolutely essential to ensure that we do as much as we can to keep our little one as safe as possible Check out the campaign's excellent website for more details.

In the meantime, if there's one piece of advice I can pass on, it's don't let your son near a Swiss Army Knife in a power cut!