People's run

Not only does this popular annual event demonstrate the resilience of individuals of all shapes and sizes, determined to complete the gruelling 26-mile course, but also the comradeship of caring.

Massive amounts of money will be raised by runners taking part, for charities from Cancer Research and the NSPCC, to individual projects, like Bolton teacher Carol Brooking's efforts to buy sports wheelchairs for local youngsters .

Even more heartening is the involvement of each of those fund-raisers with their own communities.

This trend proves once more that this truly is the People's Marathon. Parents

need help TOM Sackville points the finger at parents for the high level of burglaries in the Greater Manchester area. They are, he said, irresponsible in allowing children aged between 11 and their early teens to get involved in crime.

He is right, of course, but it is too glib for members of the Government to offload their own responsibility for the rise in crime on to parents.

Cllr Brian Iddon, prospective Labour candidate for Bolton South East, makes the very valid point that Bolton Council has been told by the Government to fund any increase in the detention of young offenders from its own Social Services budget.

So the fault lies with parents and the local authorities, not with a Government that has seen crime soar since it came to power 17 years ago and has successively taken money from the authorities it charges with looking after the criminals. Hardly.

The need for parental control and influence cannot be overstated, and Mr Sackville speaks for many victims, police officers and magistrates in reminding us that too many children are allowed to run wild and find trouble these days.

But the police, courts and local authorities need resources, as well as vigilant parents, to fight crime effectively, and too often in recent years that support has not been forthcoming.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.