Toast of the week - animal rescue edition

It's not just humans who get cut off by the tide, you know...

Two young ferrets who were at risk of drowning were rescued by lifeboat volunteers at Newbiggin RNLI lifeboat station.

What makes this story particularly appealing - apart from its furry protagonists - is the tone of the RNLI account of the incident, written by the local volunteer Press Officer, who has eschewed the usual utilitarian style of reporting in favour of a more literary approach:

The ferrets' anxious owners had made desperate attempts to save their animals by wading into the sea on the Cambois Bay rocks but their best endeavours looked likely to be scuppered when neither Tootsie or Lucky responded.

The crew found Tootsie and Lucky minutes away from drowning by the rapidly rising tide.

Fortunately the intrepid rescuers were able to calm the animals (and, by the sound of it, their distraught owners) and lift them to safety from the rocks.

The icing on the cake is the accompanying photograph, taken by the author; showing two seemingly identical ferrets, it is carefully labelled 'Tootsie (left) and Lucky' - a level of attention to detail that some of our national newspapers would do well to emulate.

It may come as no surprise that the Press Officer, who has written a book about the lifeboat station, is also listed as their mechanic; it's surely good news for the crews and those who may need rescuing that the lifeboats are in such meticulous hands.

When every day seems to bring us another news report of man's inhumanity (or indifference) to man, it is reassuring to think there are still volunteers out there prepared to risk life and limb if necessary to save lives - and to rescue the occasional pet.

It's a while since we had a toast in the Tavern, so I invite you to raise a glass tonight to the men and women of the RNLI and to their Press Officer in Newbiggin by the sea.

A question of childcare

Say what you like about Aric Sigman, the man has guts.

The author of books on the effects of a drinking culture and television on children is no stranger to controversy, but this week he boldly goes where few men have gone before; he has taken on that most redoubtable of foes, the working mother.

Putting children into day care may change their brain structure and function, according to research. 

The study by Dr Aric Sigman found that 70-80% of children in day care centres showed increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol throughout each day they were there.

Now that's what I call putting your head above the parapet! Up and down the country, I imagine mothers preparing for work were screaming at the radio as Sigman explained his findings on the Today programme, suggesting that sustained raised cortisol levels could have as-yet undetermined effects on the child's long-term health.

Now, I have to admit that there are times when I feel like echoing Ripley's outburst in 'Aliens' - "Did IQ's just drop sharply while I was away?" - and when the issue of daycare comes up is one of them.

It's well-known that taking a puppy away from its mother too early means that you're more likely to end up with an insecure or even aggressive pet; why do so many people persist in believing that the same would not apply to a six-week-old baby suddenly deprived of its mother for most of the day?

And what benefit does the mother see from this? Well, there are plenty of high-flying career women going straight from the labour ward to their desks but its a fair bet they can afford high-quality one-to-one childcare (or follow the example of superwoman Nicola Horlick, who tellingly conducted an interview on how she single-handedly managed a career and a young family with her mother bent wordlessly over a sink-full of washing-up in the background).

The reverse of the coin are those mothers for whom childcare swallows up most of their earnings - my sister once worked for a high-street shop where some of the staff, once they paid for childcare, lunch and travel, had less than £20 a week left over.

So why do they do it? For some, whether by inclination or because they have bought into the 'having it all' culture, it's definitely because they want to - begging the question 'why have a baby at all if you don't want to spend time with it?' - but plenty of women out there are trapped by a phenomenon familiar to anyone who drives on busy motorways.

Ever hogged the middle lane because you know that, if you pull in behind the lorry 500m ahead, you'll never get back out to overtake it? The same thing is happening in employment, with mothers reluctantly heading back to work because they fear that, if they drop out until the child goes to school, they may never find another job.

And of course they are right - because so many of the available jobs are already taken up by other mothers of under-5s. I'm no Mark Wadsworth but even I can see this doesn't make sense at all; if Ms A goes out to work and pays most of her income after work expenses to her childminder Ms B, then why not cut out the middle-man (sorry, woman!) and give Ms B the job in the first place?

The answer, of course, is economic activity, two women in the workplace and paying tax are better than one, even if the workplace of one is the other's home and the childcare is subsidised by the state - it's a bit like the bank wanting us to transfer money back and forth between accounts because it shows up on the books as income and productive banking activity.

If Sigman is right, and babies do suffer long-term ill effects from being put into childcare at an early age, then it could spell the end of a culture that regards infants as so many parcels to be left until called for; the ultimate expression of baby as accessory to a lifestyle.

It would be interesting to see if that correlates with a subsequent improvement in Britain's educational standards and achievement.