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Paul Stainton: The man behind the mic - awkward questions that kids ask their parents
A survey out this week revealed the top ten awkward questions that kids ask their parents.
All the obvious ones were there.
Why is the sky blue? Why does the moon sometimes come out in the day and what are those two doggies doing daddy?
Inspired by this survey, I wondered what awkward questions Peterborough kids might have for the so-called grown-ups in this city.
So I closed my eyes and searched deep within my vacuous mind for my inner child.
I imagined myself in a hoody, with some well wicked trainers.
I found some attitude and hit da streetz innit, to get down wiv da kidz man. Safe.
First stop the temporary bus station at the back of the Brewery Tap.
Our listeners report chaos. Freezing temperatures and hundreds of confused people, taking their lives in their hands, as bus after bus weaves, miraculously, in between them.
Thankfully I see the Peterborough Breakfast show team there, giving out hugs and soup, in an attempt to keep the waiting passengers warm.
I get my first question from a young boy in a wheelchair, perched precariously on the narrow pavement. “Why is there no provision for the disabled in this temporary bus station?”
I turn to my left and there in the doorway of the pub is a teenager, covered in cardboard, sheltering against the icy blast of winter.
He reaches out to me and in a faltering voice, pleads, “Why, when there are over 7000 people on the housing register, did this city only build 40 affordable homes in the last year?”
Behind me is a mountain of rubbish, bricks and rubble, mixed in with a couple of mattresses, all perched on top of a stinking mound of rotting food waste.
As a young boy struggles to make his way past this all too familiar city landmark, he grabs my arm and remonstrates,
“Why do people do this and why have only seven out of the 1500 cases reported, been prosecuted?”
My mind then takes me on a journey into the future, to Newark Hill Primary school on Eastfield Road. It’s 08.22 on a wet, foggy, Thursday morning in 2013 and a group of kids are gathered around the blue flashing lights of emergency vehicles. A twisted bicycle lies in the road nearby.
A young girl asks the question that so many people in this city are struggling to find the answer to.
“Why did they take away our lollipop lady for the sake of a few thousand pounds and put children’s lives in danger?”
Paul Stainton’s Peterborough Breakfast Show is on 95.7FM BBC Cambridgeshire every weekday morning between 6&9am
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Weather for Peterborough
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
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