[West Ender]

I remember a bit of a palaver over the Rubella innoculation. They decided to give it to all girls at around the age of 14 and this decision came just about when my younger daughter was that age. It wasn't done in school and, in Nicola's case, ended up with our GP ringing me one day to say he had no record that she'd had the injection. If he hadn't been "on the ball" (he'd just got a new computer and he was mad keen on computerised records - it paid off for me too[different story]) she might never have had the protection. She'd had what was assumed to be German Measles as a child but it's very difficult to diagnose correctly.

This latest protection is, in my view, vital. Cervical cancer isn't confined to promiscuous women. My grandmother died from it, in 1916, leaving 5 small boys. My father was the middle one, aged 8 at the time, who all his life remembered his mother bleeding profusely and dieing in agony. Would you wish that on anyone, "promiscuous" or not?

Carrying out a preventative proceedure like this jab is made easier if it's done in schools, there is less likelihood of any child slipping "out of the net". The school that has declined to be involved is a Catholic School which is, erroneously in my view, taking the view that agreeing to the jab is tantamount to condoning promiscuity. I can't agree with that attitude or the "morality" that goes with it.