Bunfight at the not OK corral

Let's hear it for Tamryn Savage. For those who don't know she is the Bristol head teacher who has banned her kids bringing in home made cakes to sell to each other for Children in Need on 'elf n' safety grounds.

She has decided that the home made buns might not adhere to strict hygiene standards and carried the risk of sparking allergic reactions among pupils who might have wheat, nut or who knows what else allergies. I might add that they might also be inedible, solid, delicious, tiny, huge or more akin to synthetic rocks but that is all part of the fun.

The fact that this has apparently been going on for 28 years at the school and the number of deaths from icing poisoning or bunbolic plague has remained fairly steady through the years at zero seems to matter not one jot. If there is the remotest chance of a risk then ban it.

The school kitchen instead will make scores of uniform fairy cakes which, one hopes, or, in the case of those with a refined sense of irony, perhaps not, will cause no gastric excitement among the pupils. It is the nanny school and takes away all the effort and personal achievement of fund raising.

Our Tamryn is not the first nor will she be the last person to prove that perhaps they are the last person who should be in a position of authority and I am sure she is even now having sleepless night about how sharp some of those pens and pencils and as for a geometry compass . . . pass the smelling salts.

If we are not careful we will breed a generation who are so frightened of the most ridiculous risk of risk that we will never be able to coax them from the womb.