WELL, that's it for another year. You know, the summer holidays - they're more-or-less finished. Of course, when I use the "h" word, I mean it in the loosest sense of the term.

For the annual shutdown may be just that for some people. But the reality for the majority is that the period now coming to a close is nothing less than unrelentingly hard work.

Let's be honest about this. For those of us who are not to be found at the coast or in foreign climes, the dog days of high summer mean sultry afternoons with no breeze, salads for tea, flying ants and swatting thunderbugs.

You know the blighters - those vile little insects that devote their few days of miserable existence on earth in making you itch to the point of insanity.

And added to all this woe is something else - the constant demands of another certain species at any given time of the day.

To all you parents who view the onset of the summer holidays with a degree of dread, and cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel, let me assure you that the passing of the years does bring a kind of relief.

They do - incredibly - grow up and leave home at some stage.

My wife and I are more or less out of that stage now. After years of fretting whenever our daughters were out of sight, with one girl flown the nest and another earmarked for university, the brows are becoming a little less furrowed.

But only slightly less. As any parent will tell you, being a mum or a dad is a lifetime's work. You're never off-duty.

Happily, despite everything seemingly pointing to the contrary, a Unicef report last year claimed that Britain is one of the safest countries for children, second only to Sweden.

Despite this, parents are understandably concerned for child safety. Personally, I may no longer be on hair-trigger readiness, but it only takes a late homecoming to activate red alert status.

Make no mistake, recent tragic events have reinforced the need for parents to maintain a constant vigilance where their children are concerned. Despite the rarity of such occurrences, the risk is always present.

However, that does not mean society should tighten the rein so much that youngsters are not allowed any freedom. Lamentably, this seems to be increasingly the case. In some respects, Britain has now lapsed into a culture of safety that threatens to severely curtail our children's development. Education's vital, but just as important is the concept of play.

For children must be given some latitude.

Through play, youngsters release a creativity liberated by imagination. Yet the freedom to play is now being seriously undermined. Children's charities have no doubt about this - which is why they have called for an "audit" of boring playgrounds.

It's true. They want to uncover the extent of bans and restrictions on traditional games now occurring all over Britain.

Research has uncovered a "culture of caution" stopping children playing tag, doing handstands or even making daisy chains for fear they will catch germs or injure themselves.

Of 500 children interviewed in a survey, many said their local play areas were boring and prevented them enjoying games that were played by their parents or grandparents. Now, schools and councils are being urged to look again at what is on offer in playgrounds and parks.

The Children's Society said a "daisy chain" audit should examine whether children can ride skateboards, bicycles and play with yo-yos. Penny Dean, a director of the Children's Society, is reported to have said: "We are asking councils and schools to look at what activities children can't take part in.

"Where there are bans, or equipment removed, we want adults to question whether this is necessary."

Penny Dean has an ally in Professor David Ball, of Middlesex University. He believes children's development could be affected if they are stopped from stretching themselves physically and mentally.

The survey discovers some laughable, if disturbing manifestations of this culture of caution. As well as yo-yos being banned for fear of causing injury, many youngsters report being barred from climbing trees, playing with water, told not to play on climbing equipment, ride bicycles or skateboards, tag and running games, or do handstands. And conkers.

Ooh, no. Mustn't play conkers. Highly dangerous is obbly-obbly onkers.

What a miserable world we are bequeathing to those who will come after us. I cast my mind back to a summer's evening in 1958...

There we are, playing kick-can on the village green, our squeals of delight competing with the sound of Frankie Vaughan's Garden Of Eden droning from some distant wireless.

Some of us hide in the spinney, others in the red barn. I've fallen in the stingers bed down by the lane, and Mick Lucas has red ants marching like storm troopers up his legs and under his shorts. For him, pain is but a proboscis away.

But the game of kick-can suddenly ends, finishing abruptly as if some form of collective intelligence has suddenly tired of the whole thing. Changes are afoot, riding the breeze as it rustles the leaves of the cobby tree.

Come on, everyone - let's run down to the old mill for a stone fight!

Down the field we tumble, a mass of shrieking childhood, all of us drunk on the moment and what it may bring. This joyous band is as one creature, snaking its way to the brook.

Chris Keeley's going to be Davy Crockett, Tony Newman is Jim Bowie. Some of us will man the ramparts of the Alamo the walls of the mill have become. The rest must march with General Santa Ana - Ray Daynes - and storm the defences.

Ash and elder sticks cut from the hedge are muskets and lances. Clods of earth form cannon balls, small stones shot. Someone has a bag of last year's spuds, all squashy and covered in sprouting chits. Perfect. We'll need plenty of grenades...

Such were the golden days of my boyhood. How I loved the fields, the spinneys and brook... reading comics in the pigsty, tales of derring-do illuminated by the light of a candle, its waxy fumes filling our secret chamber, cool and dank and dim.

This, and many other pleasures too numerous to mention, enriched my early years and helped the passage into adulthood. For when it comes to riches, memories are the only enduring wealth. And I am eternally grateful for such an abundance.

Yes, it is understandable that we are concerned for our children's safety. But it must never be forgotten that the short springtime of childhood is gone all too soon. There is plenty of time to be grown-up and burdened down by a life of care.

In the meantime, perhaps we adults should pause to reflect that a childhood is a lot more than organised events, set activities and the school curriculum. And, for the moment, we must pray that play is not dead.

Perhaps it's just a little tired. That's all.