A creamy 80% and toxic high school friends

My Observer and Guardian columns.

Me aged 17 in the sixth form common room. I was a very confused adolescent.

I’ll start with my chocolate column this week. My friend Tamsin, who is a founder member of The Chocolate Club, told me about a fantastic creamy, dark dark chocolate bar her sister in law (hope I’m remembering this correctly) told her about by Neuhaus. I’d seen Neuhaus around but never really took it in and didn’t really know about them.

Anyway the chocolate bar in question was indeed amazing and not only that I got to try their dark chocolate praline selection which is expensive (I always try to test before finding out price so do a sharp intake of breath when I sometimes find out how much) but delicious. But as ever, NO chocolate is worth getting into debt for.

This week’s Guardian column is from a young reader who has just started high school. I’m ever amazed and impressed that these young people write in to the Guardian and this reader sounded so mature. High school is a ripe breeding ground for observing human behaviour and its effects. I taught a writing class for one term at a high school in England and the teachers said you could immediately tell the students who had parental input - ie parents who cared. And you could. But children are the canaries in the coal mine and you can also tell what goes on in a family by the way they behave (of course, this applies to the families of agony aunts too…).

Whenever my children are anxious or worried or upset or ratty I always look at what is going on around them but also what’s going on with us - their parents. I look back at my own adolescence and wonder why or how no-one thought to ask questions (actually one person did: Miss Balsdon and I will always, always remember her intervention and what she said to me, it was life changing). For all the amazing things that went on at home there were also some things that could have done with some steering, some education.

This is why it makes me even more sad that cuts have been made to school counselling services, because often these children (and I use the word purposely here) need a small amount of targeted intervention to stop some problems getting bigger. But as ever there’s a short sighted approach from all governments on this. Even in the wider world people are still averse to talking to anyone about their problems. I get this, but I literally wouldn’t be here had I not had therapy when I was just out of my teens.

And what a shame that would be.