I had a phone call last night from a friend in Scotland. She broke her hip in a fall a couple of years back and had to have a hip replacement that went wrong and she then got a series of infections that meant that the hip could not be put right as quickly as it should have been. She now tells me that she has had her operation and is now out of hospital and is recovering slowly, but again not without some complications.
Jan has been a close friend of mine for some sixteen years and has had long struggles with both poor physical and mental health. Despite being a single parent with persistant health problems, and living on a council estate with entrenched social problems, she sucessfully brought up two children, one of whom works as a personal assistant to one of the scottish MP's at Westminster, the other is a chef in Sydney, Australia. Hopefully now, Jan will be able to have better health and a chance to enjoy the company of her family and friends free of the pain she has suffered in recent years..
Jan's story is worth remembering when we read the rash of stories about feckless single parents. The reality is that the majority of single parents, often singlr through no fault of their own, struggle to bring up their children sucessfully, and often against the odds suceed. It would be better if some of the papers who publicise the negative stories published some positive ones, but some of the newspapers, as we all know, have their own agendas.
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