I am one of those interfering do-gooders who have referred instances of children travelling alone across Europe to social services. I’m surprised that they were so quick to investigate Kirstie Allsopp (Kirstie Allsopp reported to social services for allowing son, 15, to travel abroad, Report, 25 August), considering the difficulty I had persuading my local authority to investigate a young traveller I was concerned about. Perhaps this was because he had travelled part of the way on a small boat and, following a dubious age assessment carried out at Dover, was declared to be an adult and sent to live in a hotel, with the potential of being made to share a room with another adult.
To be fair to children’s services, they did finally intervene, and carried out a proper age assessment and took the child into their care, but only after the intervention of some lefty lawyers.
Matt Atkinson
Southampton
• I read with great pleasure of the exploits of your readers at a young age (Letters, 26 August). We too are planning an Interrail journey, only this time in reverse. Not for me the smell of the garrigue, or the azure blue of the Mediterranean, for I can enjoy these any day. I am longing for the scent of heather and damp bracken, and the impenetrable, gloomy depths of Ullswater. In place of the soaring arches of Bourges Cathedral, I’ll look up from Prebends Bridge and marvel at the squat “grey towers of Durham”. And one other difference: I too can enjoy a reduced fare because of my age, but only because I have an added threescore years. Travel can be inspiring at any age. But can we be trusted to cope?
Joan Lewis
Saint-Étienne-de-Gourgas, France
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
