sujet danglais

Voici le sujet de l�ann�e derni�re, tomb� en France m�tropolitaine en juin 2008. Il ne pr�sente pas de difficult�s particuli�res mais demande une lecture attentive et active pour r�pondre le pr�cis�ment aux questions et commencer � r�fl�chir aux sujets d�expression �crite.

I asked my mother yesterday how much freedom she had as a child. \"Well,\" she replied, \"I walked to my nursery school in Cambridge alone, aged three, and by four I was roaming the fields behind my house.\"

After that, she explained, came the war. \"Your grandfather was away and your grandmother was organising the Women's Voluntary Service; no one knew where the four children were. We spent our 5 afternoons canoeing down the Cam without life-jackets, eating sausages out of tins and, when it rained, we slipped into the cinema to watch unsuitable love stories. No one worried about us, they had more important issues on their minds.\"

Her childhood sounded idyllic. My mother explained that it wasn't always perfect. She had once been accosted by a man while bicycling to her friend�s. \"I managed to get away. I carried on cycling to 10 my friend's house and ate my tea; it never occurred to me to say anything until I went home. The police were called but I was back on my bike the next day.\"

My mother took a similar attitude to my childhood. My younger sister and I were allowed to take the Tube home from school across London every day from the age of five. My sister was hit by a car once when she crossed a busy road to go to a sweet shop. She broke her leg but, as soon as it had 15 mended we were walking home alone again.

My brothers took the train to my grandmother's in Suffolk on their own from the age of six and spent all day without adults in the park playing football.

Now, according to the Good Childhood Inquiry, children have everything - iPods, computer games and designer clothes - except the freedom to play outside on their own. Two-thirds of 10-year-olds 20 have never been to a shop or the park by themselves.

Fewer than one in ten eight-year-olds walk to school alone.

I'm just as neurotic as other parents. I walk my three-, four- and six-year-old to school every day, clutching their hands. Their every moment in London is supervised, with playdates and trips to museums. I drive them to football and tennis. No wonder they love going to the country where they 25 can spend all day making camps in the garden, pretending to be orphans.

It isn't just because I fear they may be abducted or run over, it's because I'm also worried about being seen as a bad parent. When I let my eldest son go to the loo on his own on a train, less than 20 ft from where I was seated, the guard lectured me on my irresponsibility.

When we go to the park there are signs in the playground saying that parents may be prosecuted if 30 they leave their children unsupervised, and at the swimming pool there must now be an adult for every two children.

It is insane. My children still end up in the A&E department as often as we did. The inside of a house can be more dangerous than the street, and sitting at a computer all day, eating crisps, carries more long-term risks than skateboarding alone to a park. 35

Telegraph.co.uk, June 2007.-67