Dennis! Come back wi' me apple pie!

Kids of today, eh?

As I was entering the building yesterday I passed a mother dropping her son off for work experience. As she straightened his hoodie and pushed his hair to one side, she was a mixture of nerves, pride and "look at my little boy going off for work experience, it seems like only five minutes ago, etc".

Totally unembarrassed was he by this, and kissed and hugged mum and made himself known at reception. It was a nice scene. I was thinking that, if that had been me at that age, I'd have been crushingly humiliated in an instant.

I would have been made to wear and suit and tie for a start, and mum would have done all the talking while using my name over and over. She was like the mother from Please, Sir!

I vividly remember the girl from my geography class who worked Saturdays in Jill's Wools smirking quietly as I died of shame as mother bellowed: "F-C likes this one, don't you F-C. And what about this one F-C? Auntie Maggie's knitting F-C a jumper, everyone. What about royal blue, F-C?", while holding up skein after skein of deeply unfashionable Norwegian knits. Still, it's because she cared and I do love her dearly. I still tell her off for superfluous use of my name.

On a related note, my aunt once arrived at my cousin's workplace in London and asked to see his boss to have a talk about how he was getting on. He was mortified. Wouldn't you be? That's overstepping the parental mark.

Anyhoo, when I passed this work experience boy at lunchtime he was hood up, phone glued to ear, daft patois emanating from sneery mouth, smoking what I'm sure was a spliff. I haven't seen him since, so perhaps he went back to the office stoned and they showed him the door. Mother will be heartbroken. She clearly sees a very different boy. But don't they all?