When Caspar's class boarded the bus for a three day stay in Salzburg, some of his 10 year old classmates (boys and girls) sobbed at the thought of being separated from their mothers, for many it would be the first night away from home. In some respects children stay children longer here; in others they are given a level of freedom rarely enjoyed by children in England such as walking to school on their own, and skiing or swimming without supervision; and sometimes they are perversely encouraged to ape adult behaviour - available at the post office are sweet cigarettes 'with magic smoke effect'. We are not aware of adult sexual imagery becoming 'the wallpaper of children's lives' as is the current concern in England, but perhaps we just can't see it through the fog of cigarette smoke, real or effect.
