THESE police dispersal orders (Review, 26.02.10) appear to me to lack common sense!
What will happen to the youth groups in Lydney returning home from venues? Will they be stopped or curtailed as they all take place in the evenings: junior football training; junior rugby training; youth clubs which end at 9pm; sea cadets which end at 9pm; junior tennis club (floodlit evenings); music studio students; Lydney Brass Band cadets; RAF cadets; several teenage disco birthday parties for about 40-50 teenagers at the Rugby Club or 'The Annexe' usually 7pm-11pm?
Will the PCSO's be outside these venues to see that the youngsters go home in groups of 'two' or will parents have to pick them up, or meet them, after each session – and if they don't will they be charged with child neglect?
Unfortunately, girls grow up at an alarming rate these days – in every newspaper, magazine and TV show the pop stars are geared to teenagers with advice and ideas on sex, fashion, hair and make-up. Girls are even allowed to wear make-up to school!
I call them 'little girls to little women' from the age of 11-12 years!
They have mobile phones on which they text each other with ridiculous chatter; they have laptops on which they use Facebook to chat to dozens of 'friends' they don't even know!
With regard to boys, from time to time I have, with several older women friends, passed groups of them in the street, but they are always friendly and joke about us older people being out at 10pm. I even remember one wag saying 'Does your mother know you are out!"
There is always a certain element of children who will be very disruptive and misbehave but, on the whole, I find teenagers are polite, sensible and helpful.
These orders seem to take away childrens' rights and deprive them of their passage into adulthood, where they make their own mistakes and learn from them, as we did years ago!
Will these orders, some of which were given out before February 25, be kept on file and be a stigma against these children in years to come?
M Russell (aged 84), Lydney.