WE are sponsors of Newtown Sports under-nine football team and after several requests from our grandson, who plays for them, we went down to Lower Howsell Playing Field on Sunday, December 7, to watch them play.

As they were wearing shirts with our name printed on them I thought I would take a few photographs for the family album.

Upon producing my camera, I became aware of a lady standing by my side informing me she was the child protection officer for Newtown Sports and I was not allowed to take any photograph of my grandson without the consent of all the parents of all the children playing at that time. As there were two games in close proximity this would have entailed seeking permission from 40-plus sets of parents, an impossible task.

At this point I was not very pleased and made my feelings known in a gentlemanly fashion. I was then approached by Mr Twinberrow, the chairman of Newtown Sports, and was told it was the policy of the club that no photographs could be taken without parental consent.

We opened a copy of the Malvern Gazette (October 24) and on page 84 was a photograph of the Malvern U9/10s tag team, which showed one of our granddaughters.

I could understand the over-zealous approach if I or my wife were stran-gers but as we are both well known to the majority of parents including, Mr Twinberrow, and my grandson's father, Mark Owen, is the trainer of the team involved, it seems Newtown Sports should get its act together and take a leaf out of Malvern Rugby Club's book.

The 'nanny state' must be stopped as according to today's do-gooders, bureaucrats and regulators none of the kids of the 40s, 50s and 60s should have survived.

Our cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint, which we promptly chewed and licked.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can. We drank water from springs/streams, we ate swedes/turnips raw as pulled from the field, we smoked, honestly, and no-one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits. There were accidents. We learned not to do the same thing again.

We walked to friends' homes.

We were equipped with Brownie box cameras, we could snap whatever or whoever or wherever we liked, in fact at my school the pupil with the best set of school activity photographs got a prize at Christmas.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 60 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility and we learned how to deal with it all.

EDWARD J DAWE, Dawe Building & Construction, Mathon.