The School holidays are here and with it some lovely polite children / young mothers.
They are as I write this at the front of St Nicholas's church drinking and swearing at people who are just going about their business. Still I expect Plod will be on the case soon. Not.

I've always tried my hardest to not go into town during school holidays. It's miserable!

Isn't it pitiful that the shopkeepers and towns people do their best to attract visitors to the town and they are greeted by these foul mouth oafs who know that they are going to get away with it.
Why are we putting up with this crap?
Did you call the police?
If it's not reported then certainly nothing will be done.
Andrea who has also posted on this says it all.
She avoids coming into town during school holidays. What the **** is going on with our society where breed scum like this.

If you see my other post I said roughly the same; sadly nobody seems to do anything about it or is bothered.

I'm bothered Glen and when I experience this sort of anti social behaviour I call the police.
Maybe they won't do anything but if enough of us keep hassling them they might.
What a pathetic situation we find ourselves in.
This town will deteriorate unless standards are enforced.

Its the same story though, what do we offer these kids to do during the holidays?

Is there anything that is fun and doesnt cost too much money?

Could the council not organise some cheap events such as sports tournaments, days out, cinema trips etc.

I think back to my school days and the stuff we did during the holidays, and it probably wasnt much different to what they do now. I was lucky and had a great group of friends and most the time we kept ourselves busy, but we did smoke, drink swear etc, we were just clever enough to hang around in more remote places than town

The kids know the law protects them and so they can verbally abuse anyone they want to.
This includes a young chavette who called me a '4 eyed pr**k' when I was minding my own business when walking down Station Road recently. What could I have done? If I had said anything or tried to reprimand her I would have been the one in the wrong. You just have to take it and walk on by.

The Police are not interested in 'petty' offences such as this as they know that no prosections will take place and theres is now a target driven environment as well.

I really do despair at the way things are going. We are in the process of dismantling all that used to be good with GREAT Britain and replacing it with a section of society that will never work, will scrounge on benefits all their lives and willl contribute nothing absoultely nothing to the future. I for one don't want to pay for them anymore through my taxation.

May I suggest a remote Scottish island to send them too with no society or infrastucture. then they can live life like the feral alleycats they are??

Well said TD&H. My sentiments entirely.

Dare i suggest bringing back the national service? May help with some of these 'lost cases'

Well said..... but instead of a Scottish island how about in the middle of the ocean?

You know Simon I understand your comments but when I was young we had respect for our elders and knew where the boundaries were. These kids have no fear or respect for authority and don't give a ****.
It's not about giving them something to do it's about discipline being administered at a young age and the security of a home environment where they are loved for being children not used as a pawn to benefit their parents so that they can get a house or more benefit payments.
This is a symptom of "broken Britain"
God knows how bad it will get before a government says enough is enough.

Simon, i think you make a very good point, there really isn't alot to do that doesn't cost a lot of money, however parents should be using their imagination!

I remember my summer holidays very vividly and can remember my parents always making sure me and my brother where kept entertained with picnics, walks, bike rides etc.

I think people forget that there are activities out there which don't cost a lot of money to do.

I must say I really do hate summer holidays!! Was in tescos at lunch time and had to endure a little girl screaming at her mum non-stop for about 5-10 mins? Why was this mother not discipling her daughter!? I just felt like standing in the que screaming like the little girl, just to find out what would happen, however i didn't really feel like being sectioned today!

I second that.

When I was a kid we had plenty to occupy us without causing trouble; reading, playing with our friends etc. And I am talking about the 60's here.

It has to be said... as soon as the schools break up you know its time to add the non-emergency police telephone number to your mobile speed dial.

The problem you have is that even activities that are laid on are not for all kids.. some don't want to do anything other than hang around with their mates getting up to no good..

In the past week we have seen mindless vandalism, damage to property and general offensive / anti-social behaviour..
I really don't want to have to worry about my property being mindlessly abused by the chavs that don't want to participate in activities that may actually make them better people in the long run..

I don't expect to see teens roaming the streets at 2am.. drunk.. and abusive. We need an effective police force that actually take action... One of their strategic objectives is: To strengthen Neighbourhood Policing to respond to local need and increase public confidence. (
http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/aboutus/...tplan-aims.htm) The term action needs to be met... drunk teens out at night - taken home, parents officially given 1 strike.. 2 more and they get prosecuted for their lack of control for their child..
Perhaps the softly softly approach on these little reprobates doesn't work?? Take it to the parents... if they don't care they are held responsible...

I could go on and on about this subject... the majority of kids are fine, you expect to see them out enjoying their time out of school... but this needs to be in a courteous, respectful way...

I agree with everything except using the non emergency line. I would call 999 and at least someone might actually pick it up at the other end.

If they are drinking - I assume you mean alcohol - they can't be school kids.............unless some shop keeper has broken the law & sold them some booze........and if they are not school kids they'll be there term time too.

I'm sure it's not that difficult to find a willing person to go in and buy them booze if they are offered a couple quid for their trouble - there's homeless around who would probably do it for them for a can of beer for themself!

You would be suprised how many over 18's by children alcohol and how easily accesible alcohol is to children!

Where do youngsters get there money from for drinks etc., It seems easy enough for them to get someone else to nip in the off licence or supermarket to buy them. We used to enjoy holidays as youngsters just going to the park and sit around chattering or kicking a ball about but never did anything too drastic.

Seems that the police and council seem to be putting most of their effort into chasing after the people who actually make them money by paying their fines.

There is no profit in catching and prosecuting for anti social behaviour.

On top of that there is no punishment when caught.

Most of the people of this country list anti-social behaviour and it's associated crimes as one of their top issues and yet nothing is done about it.

I beg to differ! The government try to implament ludacrus ideas to combat anti-social behaviour, such at ASBOS and the Respect action plan, which as we all know where complete and utter failures! Good old labour government really know how to make a **** up of things!!

They don't - they nick it!!

How does that differ from what I said?

There are plenty of school kids (under 16) who drink alcohol. I've seen some as young as 8. It is not hard for them to get it either as they ask adults to buy it for them. I've been asked if I would buy them alcohol or cigarettes. They stand buy places like OneStop asking people if they would buy them.

I don't get the need for the council to organize something and even if they did, it couldn't cater for hundreds of kids every day. Not to mention the kids who will cause most trouble will not be the ones attending such an event.

I took responsibility for my own summers for the most part (other than the week or two we went on holiday as a family). I played football with locally living mates, I went over to their houses and vice versa to play computer games. I'd watch the backlog of videos we had in the house (to this day can still quote most of Blackadder!). Watch cricket on tv. Got myself a summer tennis permit for 3 quid to use the St Barts tennis courts. Read a book!

And if I wanted any pocket money I had to do some chores around the house while my parents were at work (empty dishwasher, do some laundry, hoovering) - nothing big but enough to annoy me for a few minutes.

This was most of my friends too. Nothing special, nothing expensive, just some reasonable values from our parents.

And that's what it all comes down to. Give the parents a whopping fine every time their kids misbehave and the problem would soon be cleared up.

Corporal punishment, fines for the parents, etc, would have limited results. The snag is, we cannot uninvent whatever it is that has resulted in such behaviour. I remember as a kid, we weren't particularly brilliant back then.

What do you mean by "brilliant back then"? That you were naught or that you weren't good at school?

Not doing well at schools doesn't equate with being naughty.

The clues in the original post! But for the sake of convenience - behaviour.

We may not have been brilliant back then but at least there were guidelines for us; if we stepped-over the markings we knew what the consquences of our actions were. There is nothing in this day and age.

I think quite a bit of money, effort and goodwill gets spent trying to provide ‘things for kids to do’. Unfortunately the same 2-5% of ‘the uncontrollables’ spoil it for the rest when they decide, for no reason, to destroy those things that have been provided. There’s a thousand examples every week across the country of the sort where brand new play parks or sports pavilions are vandalised or made off limits with broken glass.

For those kids in Newbury that can be bothered to get off their backsides though, there’s plenty to do. My kids have enjoyed the skatepark over the years (free and they learn to take the odd knock), Adventure Dolphin trips/kayaking/climbing courses etc (cheap) and we’re lucky in this part of the country in that you don’t have to cycle too far before you’re ‘in the woods’ and can get up to the same sort of mayhem that I used to get up to when I was their age.

(Fair enough.. they no longer play cowboys & injuns or ‘soldiers’ attacking the germans..... but they can still have fun for free....)

It’s the ‘un-cool’ factor that stops them. Peer pressure stops a lot of kids doing what they might actually enjoy doing “coz me mates say it’s gay........”


That is such a bad idea and it gets brought out whenever there’s a discussion about the ‘youth of today’. It would only work if the army ‘physical disciplinary’ system was like it was last time there was National Service (or even when I was a lad)

Bring in NS and the ‘fluffy brigade’ would be stepping in with their open-toe sandals making sure sergeant majors didn’t shout at the poor lambs and make them sniffle. Lads join the army because they WANT to be in ......the last thing they want to be doing is namby pamby-ing a bunch of cretins who don't want to play and whose answer to every order is “Why should I bovver....”

When I was in the army that sort of thing just wouldn't happen.... (or it would only happen once...just once )

I was never in the army.... I was in the girl-guides (better than the boyscouts). One think about the girl-guides... they did guide you

I agree with your comments Spartacus. So can we put some of the blame of these 'troubled' youths onto the ‘fluffy brigade’ or the PC activists, as they are the idiots that manage to stop any kind of effective punshment from remaining legal.

I always got a slapped backside if i stepped out of line, which actually stopped me from stepping too far over the line. shock horror, it worked.

Now parents are not allowed to do that, kids are getting worse.

I agree entirely. Our lack of control is letting the kids down. We are breeding an under class who won't thank us for our leniency when they are old enough to see the error of their ways.

And to compound the idea (although there are a lot of professional nannies and nurses that claim corporal punishment isn't necessary), children are still getting abused. It's a bit like banning knifes and guns, yet they still infest our society.

Calling people PC fluffy brigade, etc, isn't helpful either. I think most people do things for the right reasons.

Iommi, i have to disagree with you. I think the PC brigade do things for their OWN reasons. I think they want/need the publicity, want/need to go down in history as making 'change'.

They jump into any cause they can, whether they have knowledge of the issues or not, change laws for the 'better' and then back away into the shadows when things start to go wrong.

I could go on about this topic for ages, but that would be another thread lol

I totally agree with you here; I don't think anybody does anything for the wrong reasons. When they do it they believe they are improving the world. Hitler wanted to rid the world of the Jews because he thought it would make a difference. Stalin the same. Even the Yorkshire Ripper believed he was doing god’s work. Of course they were all delusional and bloody mad. The same with the PC brigade, of course they are not in the same league as the other lunatics I’ve mentioned, but not far from it. It is the PC brigade that has contributed to the world we’ve got today; the world before their involvement was a better place, not perfect, but better. But you are right, nobody does it for the wrong reasons in their mind. The problem here is their mind!

Who are the PC brigade? I don't think there is such a thing. What we have, I think, is social evolution and this is simply a stage in that process.

I'd be interested in seeing how you can justify statements like, "It is the PC brigade that has contributed to the world we’ve got today; the world before their involvement was a better place, not perfect, but better." How do you come to this conclusion? Bare in mind the vast amount of slums, pollution, cruelty, child/slave labour, etc, that once was the norm.

I'll over look your Nazi point as a figure of speech. Look where it got us last time

Of course there are such things. I’ll give you a couple of small examples.

In Birmingham shop a couple of years ago – 90’s I think, which, is more than a couple of years ago – a corner shop was selling Christmas cards with pictures of black children singing “I am dreaming of a white Christmas.” The black community were the biggest purchasers of these cards. A couple of white people went in thought the cards were racialist and made a complaint. The upshot of that was the black community got the backlash.

Again a couple of years ago; this was on the news. A job centre - one job centre - refused to accept a job card that stated “We are look for hard working people”. The reason it was rejected was because it seemed, to them, it was anti disabled people. The disabled lobby were insulted, as it suggested they didn’t work hard and the job centre got the back lash. And there are many thousands of examples. The PC Brigade thought they were trying improve things, but were actually making things worse.

We are in a social evolutionary process, but that doesn’t mean the direction we are going in is correct or that we shouldn’t stop it. In the early 1900’s there was a social evolution towards eugenics, which was stopped in its tracks... should that path have been allowed to continue?



The vast amounts of slums etc are still the norm in certain countries and we haven’t escaped it totally in the western world.

There has been improvements in some parts, but in others a backward step.

The PC grade have made things worse where cultural cohesion is concerned. Political correctness has made people fearful to speak out in case they are labelled bigots or racialists... I meant in that sense. We have a fear culture of feeling we can’t speak out.



My point was that people do, do things for the best intentions – i.e. as in the Nazi’s – even though the rest of the world thought differently; which was your original point.

My point was that people do, do things for the best intentions – i.e. as in the Nazi’s –

are you trying to win some dubious award?

I didn't say I agreed but it is a fact that the Nazi's or Stalin or even the yorkshire ripper or any other lunatic you might like to mention thought they were doing some good for humanity. That is a fact; that doesn't mean it was right (which it wasn't). I thought I made that clear!

I was going to reply in my customary verbose manner (suffice to say I thoroughly disagree with your synopsis).

I have often been 'seduced' by passages in the media promoting points of view like yours, but I've decided to reply by way of a link to a stand-up comic that was recorded on BBC radio some time ago which, although doesn't ideally demonstrate my position, I think serves as a reasonable alternative way of looking at PC.

URL: Stewart Lee on Political Correctness

It contains words some people might find offensive, but it was broadcast on BBC radio.

"It's nonsense to applaud acts such as Borat and Little Britain for being 'non-PC', says Stewart Lee. It's the fact that the writers are truly aware of what's offensive - and what life was like before political correctness made things better - that makes them so funny"


I am very concious, however, that we have moved way off topic and would rather focus on the specific point about children and their behaviour.

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with my synopsis as it continues the debate; there is nothing worse that agreement. What is the point of it other than confirming what one already knows; that they were right I am also pleased to see that you’ve been seduced by similar things to what I’ve written; my powers have no bounds However, you don’t really give me enough to get my teeth into other than going over old ground.

I understand your concerns about going off topics as I know you are a person who doesn’t like that particular activity so I shall go in the direction you are pointing towards... what was that again? Oh, yes... children and their behaviour

PS I did enjoy that witty broadcast. Oh, we laughed... but then what else is there to do?

Hello all. New to this to bear with me. Not quite sure what the local authorities are up to. For one: bringing in a heap of traffic wardens, costing the tax payer hundreds of thousands, trying to claw in the money spent on these not too polite whatsits. Giving out expensive fines to the disabled, who really can't afford it.

Instead, they could have spent some money on training the mothers how to have a good time without being anti social, this will pass down to the kids!
Some money could have gone on the roads which quite frankly don't help. If the area doesn't look nice, people are less likely to look after and respect their home town, and people that live in it.

The council really need to think about what they are focussing on. Newbury needs money, but people are shopping elsewhere for a number of reasons - anti social behaviour and parking being 2 of them.

bad parking IS anti social

Hi Pringles, I’ve tasted some of your flavours, but enough of the frivolity and to the question in hand.

When you are focused on one objective – i.e. too make as much money you can (and probably rule the world in the process) – you don’t bother with the all niceties of this world; compassion, understanding your fellowman etc - you read up on Niccolò Machiavelli’s the prince in how to rule the world (at least eventually ).



I don’t know about training mothers; you’ve heard of the saying “You can take a horse to the trough but you can’t make the dumb creature drink from it”. I don’t think that would work and you would be wasting good honest tax payers money. Public humiliation probably would be a better option with a couple of flogging thrown in for good measure.



True



That is the problem the council have; the inability to think, if they did we would have a lot less waste and cockups.



True and true again about anti social behaviour. So, it is not just mothers who should be flogged then... maybe we could get two for the price of one.

Now sit back and wait for the chastisement; I am sure I’ve upset somebody here?

The thing is, I think we contrived to take the conversation into the wrong direction. This includes misunderstanding what I said (I am not blaming you).

I felt it was unfair to throw what is to all intents and purposes, mild insults at people that are trying to do the right thing. I wrote, "Calling people PC fluffy brigade, etc, isn't helpful either. I think most people do things for the right reasons." This is literal; I think people who are accused of being PC are doing things for the right reasons. The reasons are equality and fairness. The Nazis, the ripper, et al, on the other hand, in my view, were not doing what they did for the right reasons - viz, cleanse the planet of the wrong sort. That, for me, isn't doing things for the right reasons.

I could detect that this conversation could start to get a bit heated with you and Simon, not least because I think both your posts were ill-conceived. I don't believe PC people are 'not far off' from wilful mass murderers (even if their actions have inadvertently resulted in death). I also don't see all PC people as being self serving. Misguided, maybe, but that's a different issue.

If things have got worse, it will take decades to get it right, but this won't necessarily require corporal punishment. Park House School seemed to make liberal use of the cane (including being used on people I know), yet some of those people it was used on still went on to get into trouble with the police and worse. The cane to them seemed like an 'occupational hazard'. Some even 'preferred' it to detention.

I think the obvious answer here is to reduce the school holidays to maybe a couple of days either side of a weekend and introduce an 'annual leave entitlement' system for pupils.
That way all the phlebs will blow their entitlement in the first few weeks/months of the year, leaving the other kids to get a good few weeks quality learning in without being held back and then I can use my holiday entitlement at times more convenient to myslef and my families travel plans.

aww Iommi, it gets fun when it gets heated!!!

On a serious note, i think we are talking about two different PC brigades. I agree with you that some of these people HAVE made the world a better place and i hope they continue to do so.

The ones I was talking about were the types that get involved where they are not needed and cause trouble. the ones who say we cant fly the St Georges flag during national football tournaments incase we offend people, the ones that say we cant celebrate Christmas, and change it to Winter festivals.

I also agree with you that this is off topic, so I shall be quiet on this subject now until a thread appears about it