WHEN I saw the TV images of the potentially dangerous suspect police were seeking in relation to a murder inquiry at the weekend, my first thought was: “Oh my God, I hope William doesn’t bump into him.”

The suspect, who the public were warned not to approach, was pictured at Euston station. And when I last spoke to our 23-year-old son William, he was also at Euston, where he regularly takes the train from London to visit his girlfriend in Warwick.

Now I know my momentary state of panic was highly irrational. The suspect, who was arrested two days later, wasn’t necessarily still at Euston, a station thousands of people pass through every day. Even if the two of them were there at the same time, the chances of them bumping into one another, or William approaching him, were pretty slim.

So, why was I worrying? Because worrying is something that seems to be hardwired into every parent’s heart.

Now that three of my sons have left home, two of them working in London and one studying at Manchester University, I seem to worry even more.

Yes, there are benefits to not having to pick up their sodden towels from bedroom floors, clear up their mess, put up with eardrum-shattering noise levels and smelly trainers, while opening the fridge door to find it is always empty.

But, moments after they leave, the worrying begins.

I cannot resist finishing off every phone conversation, text or email to them nowadays with cautionary phrases such as: ‘Stay safe,’ ‘Be sensible’ ‘Take care of yourself’ or ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

At the back of my mind, I seem to be in a low-level state of constant anxiety about dangers such as the availability of potentially lethal legal highs and the latest trend for young clubbers to inhale £2 balloons full of laughing gas, which can result in heart attacks, brain damage and death.

And I wish I hadn’t read the news report about the fact 62 young men have died in Manchester’s canals since 2008. As a result, my 19-year-old receives regular admonishments from me, reminding him to stay away from the water.

When I discovered he and his friends have been buying corner shop wine so cheap – two bottles for £5 – that it must be dodgy, that sent more alarm bells ringing. Once duty and VAT has been paid, on top of the cost of bottling, shipping and distribution, a genuine bottle of wine couldn’t possibly cost so little.

So I was quick to inform him of the increasing toll of tragic deaths in Thailand and Indonesia, where young backpackers have unwittingly bought fake vodka and gin which has been diluted with methanol, a toxic chemical you can’t taste or smell.

Counterfeit bottles contaminated with this deadly poison, a key ingredient in anti-freeze, have been found in the UK too.  Drinking it can cause vomiting, dizziness, blurred vision, and blindness: “And that’s if you’re lucky,” I informed Patrick.

"I should be paying you £9,000 for the number of lectures you give me,” he texted back. (If only his annual university tuition came free, like me)

My heart went out to the parents of the young woman in her twenties who was airlifted to hospital after being injured when she fell 11ft from one of the lions at the foot of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square at the weekend. And I pray she makes a full recovery.

I just hope William and his 21-year-old brother Charlie are sensible enough to understand the dangers of climbing or larking about on any of the Capital’s famous monuments. But I am trying hard not to mention it to them, lest they accuse me of making yet another embarrassing, utterly pointless and totally unnecessary fuss.

After all, I wouldn’t want them to think I’m some sort of crazy, over-protective, neurotic mother, would I?

 

MY 20-year-old nephew Ben has recently moved out of the family home and into a place of his own. Now that he has to pay his own electricity bills, my brother is amused to note that the boy who used to leave TVs, computers and lights on all over the house, day and night, whether he was using them or not, is now obsessed with conserving energy and switching things off when not in use. When his dad called round the other day to put up a new flat-pack wardrobe for him, Ben eyed the power screwdriver he had brought with him with suspicion: “Are you planning to use my electricity for that?” he said.

FED up with four-year-old Eliza’s constant demands, when she asked for yet another drink, her mum, Sally, said: “No, Eliza. You don’t need another drink”. Eliza looked at her a little haughtily: “And how do you know? It’s not your body.”