AFTER leaving Herefordshire four years ago, I always look forward to buying the current Hereford Times when returning to the county to visit family and friends.
After reading a recent copy on the train back to Cheshire, I was struck by the shocking number of reported crimes involving paedophilia, drugs, sexual and domestic violence.
I was filled with an overwhelming sense of sadness that so many life-threatening and life-damaging offences seem to be commonplace occurrences in beautiful Herefordshire, a place where I was born and felt privileged and safe to grow up.
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I am not naive enough to believe that any other local newspaper in the country would comprise more uplifting reading!
There is no doubt that these are proliferating, widespread problems, doubtless exacerbated by the perpetual normalisation of alcohol, drugs and extreme violence in everyday life and on television.
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During my career as a teacher, headteacher and inspector, children as young as three and four are free to watch their own TV in their bedrooms, completely unsupervised.
As a sanguine, fit Herefordian who has yet to become a grandparent, it seems increasingly hard to sustain optimism about the stability and safety of the future generation when the Hereford Times makes for such sombre reading.
JULIE BOURDON-PIERRE
Winsford, Cheshire
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