It makes my blood boil that so many normal children are deemed to have special needs - 29 July 2010

The Daily Mail, 29 July 2010

 

More and more children, we were told this week, are being diagnosed with some sort of educational special needs. Little Johnny doesn't read well? Must be dyslexia. Sweet Sophie won't sit still? Must be attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Badly behaved? Could be conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder  -  syndromes I thought were made up until I read about them in this week's newspapers.

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Get away to The Gambia: Sun, sand and ceremony in Africa's rising destination - 25 July 2010

It is 45 years since The Gambia became independent, and the celebrations to mark this event coincided with my family's visit to the country. Across the aisle from me on a crammed Monarch Airlines flight from London to the Gambian capital Banjul, incongruously surrounded by bearded and sandalwearing bird-watchers, sat the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, studying her itinerary intently.

I wondered if she was visiting the country to take part in the celebrations, as some relic of the colonial past that The Gambia had left behind.

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