Parent Pages new website

Source: DAILYMAIL

A teenager fell to his death from a multi-storey car park roof as he was distracted while writing a text message on his mobile phone.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 4:38 PM on 9th February 2011

Ryan Robbins had just escorted a couple of unknown girls to their car in Melbourne before walking away with the aim of heading out of the car park with the view to go home. But the 19-year-old began tapping in a text message to a friend last Friday night and he did not notice the waste-high railing before tripping and falling. Though it was 1.15am and Mr Robbins – who worked at a meat-processing plant in Colac and had been at a work function and then a nightclub – had been drinking, he was not drunk, according to his grandmother Patricia Schroeter.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

A children’s story about dealing with the death of a grandparent has won a leading literary prize.

By Anita Singh 7:00AM GMT 10 Feb 2011

Sita Brahmachari won the £5,000 Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize for Artichoke Hearts, the story of a girl’s relationship with her ailing grandmother. Brahmachari said she was inspired by her “beautiful and bohemian” mother-in-law, Rosie Harrison, an artist and environmental activist who died in 2005. The judges praised the book for “tackling the issue of death head on” and for its positive portrayal of the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

She became a national heroine after foiling a sledgehammer raid on a jeweller’s by clobbering six armed raiders with her handbag.

By REBECCA CAMBER
Last updated at 8:06 AM on 9th February 2011

But for 71-year-old supergran Ann Timson, her astonishing intervention is nothing new. Yesterday it emerged that the former market trader has spent ten years challenging violent criminals on the estate where she lives. Now scroll down to see the video Her neighbourhood, once notorious for its lawlessness, used to be rife with drug dealers, pimps and up to 250 prostitutes. Undeterred by repeated threats of violence, Mrs Timson helped turn the Spring Boroughs estate in Northampton from a ‘violent crack den into a thriving community’, one friend said. The grandmother’s achievement is all the more astonishing because she is understood to have arthritis in her legs. Video footage of the pensioner taking on the six thugs outside a jewellery shop has been beamed around the world.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A woman labelled Britain’s ‘worst mother’ after abandoning her two children to marry a penniless Tunisian waiter she met over the internet has returned to North Africa.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 1:02 PM on 8th February 2011

Wendy Paduch, 26, came back to Britain in October 2010 and promised her children – Dylan, six, and eight-year-old Natasha – that she would never leave them again. But she returned to Jendouba in Tunisia in January to meet up with Wajdi Jouini, leaving her children with their 59-year-old grandmother, Beryl. Ms Paduch now claims that her 21-year-old husband Mr Jouini wants to divorce her and will not let her return to Britain until she has agreed to his demands.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

A grandmother who tackled a gang of six jeweller’s shop robbers with her handbag has given her first interview, saying she risked her life because “somebody had to do something”.

By Andrew Hough and Laura Roberts

The woman, who did not want to be named, was captured on video beating away the men, who were wearing crash helmets and carrying sledgehammers, as they tried to rob the Northampton store. She said: “I was standing talking with a woman when I heard a commotion and I looked across and saw six young men on scooters. ”At first I thought one of them was being set upon by three others. What concerned me was that too many people just stood around watching as if they were in shock and nobody was doing anything.”….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A grief-stricken grandmother whose daughter smothered her two children has ‘died of a broken heart’ just weeks after the tragedy.

Last updated at 8:50 AM on 7th February 2011

Pauline Stevens, 67, could not cope with the stress of losing the trio in the days before Christmas, her relatives said. Melanie Stevens, 36, suffocated her young sons, Philip, five, and Isaac, two, before killing herself. Distraught Pauline never had time to get over the triple tragedy in Trawsfynydd, near Dolgellau, North Wales, in December, her family said. Her daughter, a mother-of-five, was found hanging in her country cottage while the two boys were found dead in their bedrooms. Melanie’s sister, Natalie, 33, said she believed the tragic events in December had caused her mother’s death.….Continue Reading

Source: INDEPENDENT

Clad in a black short-sleeved leotard, matching leggings and light pink ballet flats, Lee Poh Ying warms up in the glass-walled studio with fellow dance students.

Sunday, 6 February 2011

But Lee and a few of the other weekend ballerinas are not your typical pre-teen ballet students stretching their backs and kicking up their legs to prepare for their group lessons. She is a 62-year-old grandmother with her hair bundled up in a hairnet, one of a growing number of older people in Singapore trying to stay fit and active in a fast-greying society with an average life expectancy of 81.4 years. Ballet was Lee’s childhood dream, but it took her decades before she finally had the time and freedom to pursue it. ”My mother did not allow me to learn ballet, saying I should focus on my studies, and that dance was not a well-paying job,” she said.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

The family of Madonna’s adopted Malawian daughter are threatening to take legal action against the singer, claiming she has broken her promise to let them see the girl.

By BARBARA JONES and LARA GOULD
Last updated at 11:20 PM on 5th February 2011

They say they were guaranteed regular contact with Mercy James, now five, when the 52-year-old adopted her from an orphanage in June 2009. But they have not seen her since, despite Madonna having made two return visits to Malawi with Mercy.

Now they have enlisted the help of the country’s leading civil rights group CILIC to prepare a legal case. The child – whose 16-year-old mother died five days after giving birth – was raised by her grandmother and uncles, but placed in the care of the Kondanani Children’s Village when they could no longer look after her.….Continue Reading

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Tom Hanks has become a grandfather for the first time.

Friday, 4 February 2011

The 54-year-old actor’s eldest son Colin – known for his role as Jack Bailey in TV series ‘The Good Guys’ – and his wife of nine months Samantha Bryant welcomed their first child, a daughter named Olivia Jane, into the world on Tuesday. A source close to the 33-year-old actor told People magazine: “The family is home and everyone’s happy and healthy.”….Continue Reading

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Elton John’s father was a bit of a pig – according to the famous musician. He never once went to see his son play; never once gave him ‘that Billy Elliot moment’.

By CAROL SARLER
Last updated at 1:47 AM on 3rd February 2011

Moreover: ‘He was a tough, unemotional man. Hard. He was dismissive, disappointed and finally absent.’

Goldie, he of the blinging teeth, has his inept mother in his sights: ‘I had so much anger towards my mother, it was ruining me,’ he revealed.

Davina McCall resents her mother for sending her to live with her grandmother when she was four: ‘She said she was going on holiday, but I didn’t see her for three months.’….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

The Office shows scientists why older people can be SO embarrassing.

By GRAHAM SMITH
Last updated at 11:10 AM on 3rd February 2011

If you’ve ever wondered why grandparents have no qualms in saying exactly what they think, no matter how embarrassing, scientists might have the answer.

Older people have more trouble detecting social gaffes committed by others, the result of a decline in how they perceive emotions, a study claims.

Researchers studied a group of over-60s watching The Office, the toe-curlingly awkward sitcom starring Ricky Gervais as a socially-inept manager, and measured their ability to distinguish appropriate from inappropriate behaviour.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Scientists claim to have finally figured out why grandparents can be embarrassing.

By Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent

They did it by studying a group of over 60s watching The Office, the sitcom featuring Ricky Gervais as David Brent, a socially inept middle manager.

Psychologists found that older people were less adept at spotting Brent’s gaffes, which include him abandoning a wheelchair-bound woman in a stairwell during a fire alarm and failing to realise he cannot dance.

Compared to younger participants, the older volunteers were also less able to identifying the varying emotions of the other characters.….Continue Reading

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It was supposed to be a day of celebration – yet Hilda Finlow’s 101st birthday celebrations today will be ruined as she prepares to move out of her care home, which has closed because of council cutbacks.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 11:02 AM on 1st February 2011

Great-great grandmother Mrs Finlow, who has lived in Stanfield House, Stanley, County Durham, since  breaking her hip seven years ago, said: ‘I will be very sad to leave.

‘The move is going to be really disruptive and I would much rather stay.’

Mrs Finlow spoke as she prepared to move to privately-run Hollie Hill Care Home, in South Stanley, today. Last July, Durham County Council voted to close seven homes, with council  leader Simon Henig saying a £35m cost to bring them up to modern standards was  unaffordable.….Continue Reading

Source: GUARDIAN

The letter you always wanted to write.

The Guardian, Saturday 29 January 2011

You arrived in Britain in 1898 as a refugee from Tsarist Russia and you died in 1935. I was born in 1943; I first saw a picture of you in 1984, in a family group with my grandmother, my mother and her five siblings; and I saw your gravestone, only once, in 2008. That is almost all I know about you, directly.

Indirectly, however, I know some other things, none of which does you any credit, and I wonder now, in my late 60s, with all my aunts and uncles dead, how it might be possible to understand what made you do the things you are said to have done.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Christopher Middleton picks ten breaks that should satisfy children, parents and grandparents alike.

By TELEGRAPH

Take your family to Andalusia, to be hosted by another family. Jane and Hugh Arbuthnott, a British couple, built their seven-bedroom Sotogrande home some 20 years ago, and now run week-long house parties for paying guests, with the help of their son and daughter-in-law.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

A teenager who fled to a Greek island after stealing £1,700 from his grandfather was tracked down by his mother using a social networking site.

26 January 2011 Last updated at 12:31 GMT

Thomas Lumsden’s mother traced him to Crete using his Bebo page after he fled from Scotland. He had flown there after visiting his grandparents to collect his 18th birthday present, but also stole his grandfather’s chequebook. The money was used to pay off drug debts. Sentence was deferred.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

The grandfather of two of the four children killed in a house fire in Derbyshire has paid tribute to a “beautiful” boy and girl.

25 January 2011 Last updated at 18:52 GMT

Aleisha, six, and Rocco, four, died at the semi-detached home in Highfield Road, Hulland Ward, on Monday night. Tony Nulty, from Carmarthenshire in Wales, said his son Lee was a “loving dad” who was “very upset”. The other two children killed have been named locally as Tommy, aged nine, and Appolonia, two.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A man of 29 is set to become Britain’s youngest grandfather when his teenage daughter gives birth later this year.

By NICK MCDERMOTT
Last updated at 9:55 AM on 25th January 2011

The soon-to-be record breaker said he is ‘fuming’ that his 14-year-old daughter is 11 weeks pregnant, despite just starting to study her GCSE courses.The man, whose identity is being kept anonymous to protect his young daughter, said last night: ‘It’s like history repeating itself.‘I quite like the idea of being the youngest grandad in Britain, but at the same time I’m fuming that she is pregnant.‘I know myself how tough it is being a teenage parent and now she has to go through the same thing.….Continue Reading

Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment

Failure in breastfeeding is very often due to a lack of support from those too ready to say: “Give him a bottle”.

By Sunday 23 January 2011

As a midwife, mother and grandmother, I would like to make two points in response to Barbara Ellen’s comments about the breastfeeding debate (“Stop bullying mothers about breast v bottle”). First, guilt comes from within. Midwives do not set out to make women feel guilty. Women need to know that breastfeeding is not only physically the best thing for both mother and baby but that it also enhances the relationship between them. Second, those who suggest or offer bottle-feeding as the solution to the admittedly often challenging period of learning to breastfeed are the bullies here, as this immediately undermines the mother by suggesting that she can’t do it.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

The grandmother of Carlina White has told The Sunday Telegraph of her shock and delight as the family is reunited.

By Barbara McMahon, New York

Sitting in the living room of her apartment in Harlem, 71-year-old Elizabeth White looks happy but still slightly shell-shocked by the news that her granddaughter Carlina has been found, 23 years after she was kidnapped as an infant from a New York hospital.

“I want to ask the woman who took her why she did what she did,” she says. “What possessed her to steal a baby and cause all this heartache?”….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL>> Read full article and comment

Baby boy enjoys a cuddle with father and grandparent killed in M4 crash.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 5:19 PM on 21st January 2011

The happy holiday snap was taken in Morocco where the three generations of the Padden family were on a winter sun and surfing holiday.But hours after returning home Tom Padden, 20, his partner Louise Evans, 23, and his father Steve Padden, 54, were killed in a horrific motorway smash on the M4.Six-month-old baby Logan who was in his car seat was pulled from the wreckage alive along with grandmother Suzanne, 53.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

Confidence at an all time high by retirement age.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 10:35 AM on 21st January 2011

If being told you dance like your dad is an insult, being likened to your grandfather could be the ultimate compliment.Research shows men’s confidence on the dance floor rises with age. And by retirement, it is at an all-time high.But for women the opposite is true, with nothing matching the abandonment of dancing in front of the mirror as a teenager.The results come from a study of thousands of Britons carried out by Peter Lovatt, a professional dancer turned psychologist.….Continue Reading

Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment

Reforming the Education Maintenance Allowance would not be a straightforward attack on the poor

By Deborah Orr

Blind acceptance that all benefits are good is not healthy, especially when the issue is so controversial. Take the Education Maintenance Allowance. There are those who defend it absolutely, just as it is. Yet round my way, one teenage child of a barrister receives it (the mother and father live apart), and one teenage grandchild of a distinguished journalist receives it, while attending a private school paid for by the grandparent.….Continue Reading

Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment

The growing number of UK grandparents who, like me, care full-time for children need more support from social services.

By Helen Collett

There are many reasons why grandparents might be raising their grandchildren: a relationship breakdown between the child’s parents, illness, addiction or violence. Whatever the reason, it is believed that around 200,000 grandparents in the UK are providing full-time care for their grandchildren.

My story started back in 2001. I’d worked hard raising my own children and was starting to look forward to and plan for retirement. Then, our family life took a turn for the worse. My son John’s relationship with his children’s mother broke down, and he came to live with us. His two children, Michael (who was seven years old) and Amy (14 months) soon followed, as social services became involved and placed the children with us. They said it would be temporary.….Continue Reading

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A baby was left an orphan after being pulled alive from a motorway crash which killed his parents and grandfather.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 2:02 AM on 19th January 2011

Six-month-old Logan Padden was ­rescued with his grandmother from the wreckage of the family’s car, which ­overturned as they returned from a ­winter ­sunshine holiday.

His mother Louise Evans, 23, father Tom Padden, 20, and ­grandfather Steve ­Padden, 56, could not be saved.  His grandmother Suzanne, 51, managed to escape.….Continue Reading

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As a new mother some poems on the subject have really overwhelmed me. Can you name some more?

By Alison Flood

I have never been much of a Blakean – a certain ginger-haired young man of small stature is my long-dead poet crush of choice, as I’ve said in the past – but after I was moved repeatedly to tears by his poem Infant Joy following the birth of my daughter, I’m considering reconsidering my allegiance.

Of course I’d read the poem before, but I’d been largely untouched by it – seen it as a bit soppy, really. But buried amid the sea of pink which swept over us after Meredith’s arrival was a book of readings for births and christenings from her grandparents, and I started flicking through it….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Watching her mother grow up a hopeless drunk was not enough to stop Rachel Trezise nearly tipping over the edge herself…

By Rachel Trezise

At the age of four I began to resent my mother’s evening shift at a nearby nightclub, my umbrage manifested in raucous crying fits coinciding with the arrival of the babysitter. My mother pacified me with gulps of her sweet sherry. There was nothing unusual about that, it seemed. Her affection for alcohol was a delinquent chromosome afloat in the gene pool, something everybody in the valleys inherited.

My grandfather was a drinker, too. Some of my earliest memories are of the short walk from my grandparents’ cottage to the pub on the high street, when at sunset I’d help my nana carry his dinner down the hill, the pair of us struggling with heaped plates wrapped in tinfoil, Tupperware jugs heavy with viscous gravy. When she spotted him sat at the bar, eyes blunted with drunkenness, she’d sneak up and scrape the food in his lap.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

A 21-year-old woman remains seriously ill in hospital after contracting swine flu while pregnant.

14 January 2011 Last updated at 19:36 GMT

Leanne Gunnell suffered brain damage when doctors at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital put her into a coma to save her unborn child. Faith was delivered by caesarean weighing 3lb (1.4kg) and is expected to be sent home soon but her grandparents fear her mother will never recover. A hospital spokesman said it would review in detail what had happened.….Continue Reading

Source: GUARDIAN>> Read full article and comment

Rescuers hail ‘miracle’ as six-month-old Nicolas Barreto and his father survive landslides that left 500 dead.

By Tom Phillips in Teresópolis

News of the “miracle” rescue of a six-month-old Brazilian boy provided a rare moment of hope yesterday as the death toll from this week’s devastating landslides continued to rise. Nicolas Barreto was reportedly at his grandmother’s home in the hilltop town of Nova Friburgo, one of the worst-affected settlements, when a cascade of earth and debris swallowed up the area early on Wednesday. He and his father were presumed to have died in the disaster, which has claimed more than 500 lives.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A grandmother-of-three thought she was safe from swine flu after she had the vaccine months ago.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 3:39 PM on 14th January 2011

But Eleanor Carruthers, 68, from Merseyside became the latest victim of the outbreak on Saturday. Mrs Carruthers was seriously ill with emphysema and lung cancer, but had had the flu vaccination in October to protect her from the illness. Despite the step, she was rushed to the Royal Liverpool Hospital last week and later died. H1N1 (swine flu) was recorded as one of the main causes of her death. She leaves behind three children and her husband Alf, 69. Today her daughter, Carole, 46, said they were all shocked by how quickly her condition deteriorated.….Continue Reading

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A mother-of-four lost three and a half stone by simply using a Wii Fit – after her young granddaughter labelled her ‘fatty bum bum nana’.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 5:09 PM on 12th January 2011

Before her husband bought her the Nintendo console, Jean Hinton was overweight, depressed and had no friends as she lacked the confidence to even step out of her front door. But in just nine months, she lost 49lbs by spending just half an hour a day on the Wii Fit.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

Bombed, broke and widowed, she still kept smiling. Meet the 91-year-old lady with a lesson for us all.

By SUZY GREAVES
Last updated at 8:30 AM on 10th January 2011

A few weeks ago, I had an interesting house guest over for tea. ­Sylvia Brady, a ­91-year-old grandmother, sat opposite me at my kitchen table and reminisced about the time she watched a bomb sail over her house.

‘The noise was horrendous — such a high-pitched screaming noise,’ she said. ‘I got such a shock that my waters broke.’

Sylvia, who was pregnant with her first child in 1944 during World War II, sat beside the warm Aga in my kitchen and we talked for hours about bombs, food shortages, death and love.….Continue Reading

Source: GUARDIAN

Readers’ favourite photographs, songs and recipes.

Saturday 8 January 2011

This is a photograph of my mother, my grandmother, my mother’s grandmother and her mother: Lyn, Edith, Muriel and Sara Ann. It was taken in the summer of 1948. They all lived in Llanelli in the same terrace of cottages, which was built by, I think, my great-great-great-grandfather.

My grandmother lived in one of the cottages from birth until she married, and then moved into another one, where she lived until she died after 64 years of marriage. My grandfather, aged 89, still lives there, and the house brings back many happy memories of visiting Mamgu andDadcu (Welsh for grandparents). There is an old painting of the terrace hanging in my grandparents’ house that has passed through several generations of family who have lived there.….Continue Reading

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The broadcaster talks about her family.

By Nick McGrath

My family weren’t religious Jews but we were certainly cultural and traditional so there were Hebrew classes, Friday night Sabbath dinners at the grandparents, innumerable religious festivals and a voluble chorus of grandmas and aunties and people pitching in with an opinion on everything. It was a convivial, very jolly, very family-based existence really. And a lot of food was eaten too.

My parents expected hard work, academic excellence and a constant stream of achievement every second of every day. When I was four, at my school a star badge was given out to one child every week and every week my father would say, “Have you got the star badge?” and if I hadn’t I’d have to run the gauntlet of recrimination and accusation about why I hadn’t got it. So that hard-working spirit is now ingrained in my psyche.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A nursery assistant was last night charged with raping a toddler at his workplace.

By CLARE ELICOTT, ANDY DOLAN and PAUL SIMS
Last updated at 10:12 PM on 6th January 2011

Paul Wilson, 20, was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday when officers arrived at his home to execute a search warrant.

As police closed the privately run Little Stars Day Nursery to begin forensic examinations, the grandmother of one child said of Wilson: ‘He was such a nice lad. We’re all in such shock at the news.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH >> Read full article and comment

A German grandmother was imprisoned for three years in a single room in pitch blackness by her granddaughter to steal her welfare money.

10:24AM GMT 05 Jan 2011

Source: TELEGRAPH

Children are being left without decent adult role models because of the decline of the traditional extended family, according to a leading headmistress.

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

Schools are increasingly being forced to offer lifestyle advice as children grow up without regular contact with grandparents and “wise aunts”, it was  claimed. Helen Wright, incoming president of the Girls’ Schools Association, said parents were often under “tremendous pressure” as they struggle to bring up children alone in the face of modern commercial pressures.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Children are being left without decent adult role models because of the decline of the traditional extended family, according to a leading headmistress.

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

Schools are increasingly being forced to offer lifestyle advice as children grow up without regular contact with grandparents and “wise aunts”, it was claimed. Helen Wright, incoming president of the Girls’ Schools Association, said parents were often under “tremendous pressure” as they struggle to bring up children alone in the face of modern commercial pressures. The comments come just weeks after a Government review recommended that new mothers and fathers should be given parenting classes.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

Study reveals older people have more empathy.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 1:30 AM on 3rd January 2011

If your grandparents seem wiser and more caring than you there appears to be a scientific reason for it.

Researchers have discovered that ‘emotional intelligence’ peaks after the age of 60.

As a result, older generations have more sensitivity and empathy than younger adults. They are also better at seeing the positive side of stressful situations.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

A couple have revealed how their 20-year-old son, who died last year, secretly fathered two children with his aunt’s lesbian lover.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 9:31 PM on 28th December 2010

Charlie Lowden entered into a pact to help his aunt Sarah and her partner Claire have a family of their own. The details of the arrangement would have remained secret if the young scaffolder hadn’t died following routine surgery just before Christmas last year. They have launched legal action against Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, saying they were unhappy with Charlie’s post-operative care.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

From a Christmas glutton to a doting grandpa.

By Terry Wogan

‘Very little for me, now. A slice of breast and a little brown meat, just a spoonful of stuffing, oh, and that’s too much gravy. Is that ham? Goodness, no… a half potato, then, and that small Brussels sprout. Can you cut that chipolata in half for me? I’ll never drink all that wine, is there any fizzy water? I had a slice of smoked salmon to start; I’m not able for any more. I probably won’t finish all of this…” How I wish that had been me yesterday, as I steer clear of the weighing scales, knowing that I still won’t be able to control myself in front of today’s roast beef.….Continue Reading

Source: BBC NEWS

An eight-year-old boy is hoping to raise £10,000 for charity by taking part in a 23-mile walk across London.

19 December 2010 Last updated at 11:48 GMT

Jonjo Heuerman, from Kent, will start on 25 February from Wembley Stadium and finish at West Ham’s Upton Park ground.

He hopes to arrive on the pitch’s centre circle just before the Hammers’ clash against Liverpool on 27 February.

It is in memory of his grandmother, Lynda Heuerman, and former West Ham and England captain Bobby Moore, who both died from bowel cancer.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

Great grandmother Lillian Lowe today claimed she is the world’s oldest Facebook user at 103 – and she updates her status from her iPad.

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 9:20 AM on 16th December 2010

Great grandmother Lillian Lowe today claimed she is the world’s oldest Facebook user at 103 – and she updates her status from her iPad.

Cyber centenarian signed up for the website to keep track of what her seven grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren are up to.

Just two months away from her 104th birthday, the family of young-at-heart Lillian believe she is the oldest of the social networking website’s 500 million users around the world.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

Meet the “club sandwich generation” – they are middle-aged and nearing retirement but forced to juggle caring for elderly parents with supporting their grown up children and grandchildren.

By Tim Ross, Social Affairs Editor

Currently there are 3.3 million families with four generations still alive but by 2030 this will rise to 4.2 million. In 20 years’ time, one in four families will include frail great-grandparents in their 80s and 90s as well as infant great-grandchildren, who will require childcare.

Experts warned that the “squeezed” middle generation – aged between 55 and 64 – will face a “double whammy” as they are asked to contribute towards the cost of educating and caring for their grandchildren and looking after their elderly parents.….Continue Reading

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A young schoolboy died from a severe asthma attack after getting into a frenzy of excitement when his younger sister was given a puppy on her birthday.

By ANDREW LEVY
Last updated at 4:53 PM on 14th December 2010

Owen Wagner, nine, collapsed minutes after his six-year-old sister Tegan was presented with the Chihuahua.

He tried using his inhaler before his mother, Tracy Asker, 38, rushed home to get his nebuliser but both failed to help. She then attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before paramedics took over but he had suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at hospital. Owen’s grandmother yesterday described how he had been ‘absolutely fine’ minutes before the tragedy at her home in Risby, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. ’He had been with his mum and older sister and brother to pick up the Chihuahua,’ said Adele Asker, 54….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

When Nisha Lilia Diu’s opinionated 92-year-old Italian grandmother moved in with her and her boyfriend in their tiny London flat, she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

By Nisha Lilia Diu

‘My grandmother has moved in with me.’ Oh, the dumbfounded faces! My friends couldn’t have looked more stunned if I’d announced Sloth fromThe Goonies was my new flatmate.

I am in my twenties and I live in London. Adding a nonagenarian grandparent to that equation is like putting potatoes on pizza: it’s just not meant to be there. But there she was, my Italian Nonna at the stove of my little flat in Shepherd’s Bush, my shell-shocked boyfriend silently lifting lasagne into his mouth. How on earth had this happened?

I’d hosted Christmas. I gave Nonna our bedroom – for Christmas. But no sooner had she landed than it became apparent this formidable woman would finally have to give up her independent existence.….Continue Reading

Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment

The letter you always wanted to write.

Saturday 4 December 2010

You were a formidable woman in many ways – God’s very own Boudicca in a Glaswegian tenement. You came from a disadvantaged background, brought up by a neighbour after your mother died, in a time when men didn’t look after children. Your two brothers were sent into care by your father, my great-grandfather, about whom nobody knows very much, except that you never forgave him.

You were determined that your own children would receive the very best education you could provide. There weren’t too many kids from Easterhouse going to private school. All of your children are success stories – how could they dare be otherwise with you at the helm? Catholic mother, master-manipulator; playing your children off one another, stoking the fires of competition with barbed comments and comparisons, with the constant reminder that God sees everything.….Continue Reading

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A clear division should be made between the research function of universities and their role as ‘jobcentres’.

By Eshaan Akbar

My grandmother got married in Bangladesh at the age of 14, and devoted herself to her seven children and lawyer husband. He always encouraged her to read, but it was only after East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971 that she decided to fulfil her dream of studying. When she passed away in 1988, she was midway through her PhD in Bangla literature (the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islamand Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay were among those she explored). For her, studying at university was simply about the value of learning. For my parents, who emigrated to the UK in their teens in the mid-70s, university education was viewed as a passport to financial and social security for their children.….Continue Reading

Source: DAILYMAIL

This week’s experts are ANDREW ELSON, a chartered financial planner with Honister Partners in Boston Spa West Yorkshire;

By EDITED BY STEPHEN WOMACK
Last updated at 10:07 PM on 27th November 2010

HELEN KANOLIK of HelenK Financial Advice in Wimborne, Dorset; and MATT COWARD, partner with accountant Price Bailey in the City of London, If you have a personal finance query, write to: Ask the Experts, Room 445, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS. Please do not send original documents. Sorry, no personal replies.

D.R.writes: I have been paying into a Child Trust Fund for my grandson since his birth in May last year. Now that the Government has abandoned this scheme, it does not seem sensible to add to it. Can we transfer the money to a better home? A.E.replies: Children born after the end of next month will not be eligible for the CTF, but existing accounts will continue to benefit from tax-free investment growth.….Continue Reading

Source: TELEGRAPH

A 91-year-old grandmother has donned a cape and spandex to become her superhero alter-ego ‘Super Mamika’.

1:42PM GMT 25 Nov 2010

Sacha Goldberger, a 41-year-old French photographer, had the idea four years ago after his Hungarian-born grandmother Frederika became lonely and started to show signs of depression.

“It started as a way for us to spend time together”, he said.

“We have always been very close and she would often stay with me. I was wondering how to find a way to be with her and make her happy.”….Continue Reading