Find the teens something to do (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Find the teens something to do

THROUGH the last few weeks you have been showing how bad some kids are around the Swindon area.

I live in Highworth and yes we have big problems with the kids but what have the kids got? Not a lot.

Where are all the youth clubs and I don't mean the part-time one next to the OAP's bungalows in Highworth. The kids have got very little, so they hang around the shops, High streets etc and when there's more than four together people are frightened.

You tell these kids, get a job, find something to do.

So where are the jobs?

I'm 55 and over the last 42 years most of the jobs have gone. the small shops, milk rounds, the paper rounds you can go on and on.

Where have all the clubs gone. I grew up in London and I went to a boxing club (run by the police), youth club twice a week and did football in the parks, dancing at the weekends and I had a job at the age of 13. In the summer I went round London on the buses and trains with my mates in safety.

Now that has all gone. So come on councils etc, find something for these kids to do. Get more clubs going and stop complaining about the kids.

It's just not their fault. We are the ones that go to the supermarkets that shut the small shops down.

Get the backbone back into schools, give the parents some power so they are not scared if they threaten the kids (not hit) with strong action and get the police out of their cars.

Let's be proud again of our community and kids and not shut the door as soon as there's trouble and say it's got nothing to do with me.

R PARMENTER

Windrush, Highworth