Don't we live in a selfish society? My daughter has broken her elbow and her wrist. Its quite obvious to any on-looker that she has a problem at the moment since she has her arm in plaster and also has to wear a very sophisticated sling to support her broken elbow.

Having been told to take four weeks off work, my daughter decided to take one week off, as her employer - a very large company - have done nothing but put pressure on her to come into work. She has already sat at her desk for two weeks, with some crappy little foam sling and no plaster, as the hospital didn't bother x-raying her wrist until two weeks after the injury and a broken elbow cannot be plastered. When she told them she had broken her wrist as well as her elbow, the reply from work was "Well now you've got it all strapped up properly, you'll be able to do more won't you?" Sympathetic or what?

She decided to spend her one week on the sick with her sister in Wales. Not being able to drive, she took the train. Her Dad got her on the train to go there, and a man helped her to get her case off the train when she had to change. Coming home though was a different story. The train was packed and they all sat and watched her struggle trying to put her case on a luggage shelf. After a few attempts she asked a ticket collector to put her case up for her since no one was about to offer. Since all this took some time she then found there were no seats. No one offered her a seat despite only having one arm to support herself with, so she had to actually ask a woman to remove her shopping from a spare seat so she could sit down.

The age of chivalry, it would appear, is well and truly dead.

She is 21 next week and this week-end (bad arm or not) is party time. What worries me is what else she will have broken by Easter Monday. With all her limbs functioning properly she's an accident waiting to happen (this is the fourth time she's broken one wrist or the other) so who knows what the one-arm bandit will be capable of doing after a few drinks.