Heartwarming Story on Countryfile tonight.

Oh shoot! Missed it. Will wind it back when the prog has finished. DH watching it.

There isn't a sentimental bone in my body, merlot but I was welling up!

Wasn't he sweet? Animals can be so amazing.

We've had lots of discussions on here about looking after grandchildren and supporting grandchildren with learning difficulties so I couldn't wait to put it on.

He's a lucky little boy to have such a lovely grandmother and farming lifestyle but you can't manufacture that kind of rapport between animals and children.

I have a feeling he will overcome many obstacles in his life. I do hope so.

He is a sweet little boy, but why did I keep thinking e-coli?!

Ha Ha, jingl. There was a picture in the paper today of 'Mary and Joseph' being led down the street wearing hard hats.

Maybe the nursery teachers were hovering with bottles of hand gel?

What a lovely story it was !
I am so glad that e-coli had not been 'invented' when I grew up on a farm. We went to school with ringworm caught from the cattle but it was 'normal' then so nothing was ever thought of it. Pop a bit of cream on and it went eventually. Kids need to be exposed to stuff, not protected from it IMO.

DD1 is a health and safety consultant for farms - the very person her Dad would have cursed to hell and back when he was a farm manager. I showed her the pic of Mary and Joseph in their hard hats and she said, 'Why isn't that donkey wearing a high viz tabbard??'

I hope her tongue was in her cheek.

Nothing funny about e.coli. DH very very poorly earlier this year with what turned out to be a strain of e.coli. Hospital and IV antibiotics and all.

It was said Arthur had cerebral palsy which doesn't necessarily mean he has learning difficulties. Lovely artical

I'm sorry Soutra, I didn't intend to be flippant about e-coli. I think what I was clumsily trying to say was that perhaps children too protected from infections and bugs etc. Their immune systems need to know how to work. As a child we had all the usual childhood illnesses but never heard about anything else. Maybe we were just lucky.
I do hope your DH fully recovered from e-coli.

I agree with you tiggy, the immune system really needs to learn how to cope with some of the infections that are around, but will not do so if it is over-protected. As for the little lad with the lamb that was indeed heart-warming, and we are learning so much more these days about how animals can relate to people appearing to have some kind of 'inner knowledge' that they can help. Grandmother was great too, but then most grandmas are, aren't they?

I am not sure how you could teach the immune system to sharpen up. Is it not the case that we have created the problem by 1) random overuse of antibiotics 2) by intensive farming methods which are a by product of the demand sor cheap food and 3) by forgetting old fashioned common sense basic hygiene. Sadly I don't think we can turn the clock back.

Possibly for the first time, I felt some sympathy with Jingl's comment. It may have sounded flippant, but there is a real concern behind it.

I was thinking of more of a scaled down version of the BLUE Peter ewww.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Cj2TtFd_Elephant

didn't copy; but y'get my drift....

Soutra all of what you say is of course true, and it is not so much a case of'teaching' (I probably should not have used the word 'learn') but of giving our bodies the chance to cope with some of the bacteria and infections which are out there. If we are constantly cleaning, scrubbing, disinfecting, then the immune system gets used to that. Having said that, I agree we do live in a wider world and diseases and infections are more easily spread. There are however, hundreds (probably thousands) of my generation alive today, all of whom lived without the benefit of anti-biotics,but possibly on the other hand would not be alive if it were not for the advances made in medicine. We have to live for the day is the anwer I suppose.

Small children pick up some truly awful bugs from nursery schools. As soon as they're over one thing they go down with another as they slowly build up immunity to childhood ailments.

They're far less likely to be made ill from contact with animals (e-coli outbreaks are mercifully rare) especially as people are now more aware about the importance of hygiene.

Before antibacterial gel, most farm children washed their hands with carbolic soap. Maybe they still do.

I can't seem to see the right thing, the link is showing what appears to be current news?

This is a better link

Sorry. I put up a link yesterday which was still going out live.

It starts at around 34:38