You never stop worrying about your children

Parents cannot help worrying about their children. It is only natural, although sometimes the chances of harm coming to our offspring are less than we fear.
For example, the risks of being beaten up in the street or molested by a paedophile in mid-Somerset are much more unlikely than many people think.
Nevertheless, good parents must warn their children of the different dangers they face as they grow: from hot liquids, electricity and strangers when they are little, to drink, drugs and dodgy driving as teenagers.The worrying diminishes as your children learn and (hopefully) accept responsibility, but never vanishes.
My daughter is 18 now and determined to become an actress. We have talked about how this is precarious work with the expectation of frequent unemployment and a dearth of roles for older women.
But if that is her vocation, as a parent you should be grateful she knows what she wants to do and you must support her to the hilt.
Still, the unease persisted until Sunday night when we saw her in a brilliant performance of Calamity Jane at the Egg, the youth auditorium of Bath’s Theatre Royal.
Were we proud? You bet.
We only hope that our young actors, musicians, singers and dancers get the support they deserve from full houses, and their contemporaries prefer live performance to banal television and the isolated pleasures of video games.
Philip Welch