I SEE there are plans to put some "danger" back into children's playgrounds.

Items like the witch's hat are back on the agenda, though they are apparently going to be modified to make them safer.

The health and safety lunacy that governs so much of our lives never ceases to amaze me.

Kids' playgrounds today are so wrapped in cotton wool (almost literally in some cases) that the fun has been surgically removed from them.

Were the parks and playgrounds of my childhood so dangerous?

I don't recall seeing ambulances queueing up to cart us off to A&E.

In those days everything was made of metal and if you fell off you hit concrete.

But it never did us any harm.

I do recall a story about one child in our park in Cwmbran whose arm had apparently been broken after being flung off a roundabout - but I never met him or anyone who claimed to have met him.

I suspect it was an urban myth.

Yet it seems to me that it is such myths that have led to the knee-padded and helmeted existence our kids are now forced to lead.

Falling over, scraping knees and breaking the odd bone is all part of growing up - or at least it used to be.

Now the fear of prosecution drives every council to make their playgrounds risk-free.

And life isn't like that.

NOT that I wish to promote a newspaper almost as good as the Argus - but take a look at the page of non-PC jokes in today's Sun.

Inspired by Jonathan Ross's jibe about Heather Mills this week, it is brilliant.