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This week's columnist Helen Penn says we should count our blessings in celebrating a safe Christmas This year, for the first time, my South African grandchildren will be with me in the UK for Christmas. My grandson is convinced there will be snow.
This week's columnist Helen Penn says we should count our blessings in celebrating a safe Christmas

This year, for the first time, my South African grandchildren will be with me in the UK for Christmas. My grandson is convinced there will be snow.

For him, Christmas is high summer when the sun shines every day, so he cannot comprehend the dark and the damp, at least not yet.

He is looking forward to travelling on public transport, going on a bus or a train without fear. After Johannesburg, London is a safe place. Aged eight, and leading a protected life in gated suburbs, he has been witness to four violent deaths. He has seen robbers shot dead in front of him. He knows about more incidents that people close to him have experienced.

There are dramatic cases of murder in the UK too, but the statistics haven't changed much over the years, only the publicity given to them. In South Africa there are 18,000 reported murders a year. Wherever I go with my grandson in England, he questions me closely about robberies and policing. He is amazed that police here do not routinely carry guns, and he has many anxious questions about their efficiency - 'They do catch robbers, don't they?'

As Tim Gill pointed out ('To the point', 30 November) we are concerned about the bullying and the fears that children experience in the UK. So what must it be like to live in countries where there are few or no guarantees of safety? Kofi Annan spoke last week of the situation in Iraq, where mothers and children say goodbye to each other in the morning before school, not knowing if they will ever see one another again. Even in countries which are not at war, life is often precarious, on a scale that dwarfs the worst of anything we experience in the UK.

I do not mean to suggest that children in these countries are timid victims - they are resilient, they have loving relationships, and in many ways they have more freedom to play lively games and exercise responsibility than our over-protected children. But the backdrop is one of extreme poverty and inequality.

At least I can try to give my grandchildren a good time while they are here. We have booked pantomimes and shows and even managed to get tickets for a first division football match. We will catch buses and trains and go out on bikes. But at the same time, I will be thinking of our great good fortune, living safe and protected lives, and upping my donations to Oxfam and other charities to try to tip the balance by one iota.

Helen Penn is professor of early childhood studies at the University of East London