He's alright, he is.

My son is a Policeman. Daniel that is, he has been a part timer for 4 years and he loves it, working as a Hotel manager as his full time job, he worked on his days off and in the evenings he wasn't on duty. He applied to the full time police force and he started today.

I am, of course really proud of him but no more proud that I was yesterday, or last year or 15 years ago, or the day he was born.

I knew Daniel as soon as I knew I was carrying him. I knew he was a boy and I knew he was going to be splendid.

When I was about 8 weeks pregnant, I was working as an auxiliary nurse in an old peoples' home. I was helping one lady to get ready for bed one evening. A dear old lady, completely dotty, dementia had fuddled her brain and she never spoke, not a single word of sense, just day long muttering and mumbling and eh-eh-eh-ehing. I leaned over her to help her stand up and she put her hand on my belly and said, as clear as day, " Bless him...there's a little lad in there and when he is born you will look on his dear little face and you will say 'He's alright he is' and he will be, he'll be more than alright that little fellow" and then she stopped, not one of us ever heard her say another word, we'd never heard her speak before and she never did it again it was extraordinary and moving and I believed her.

I wanted to call him Samuel. I was adamant that his name would be Sam, right up until 2 days before he was born when I had a dream that I gave birth to him and when the nurse handed him to me I looked up and said "It's Daniel" so Daniel it was.

Daniel Carl William.

I thought hard about his name, I wanted it to have good initials, DCW and then his surname looks so good written down and I made myself imagine how it would look on a brass name plate.

It would look as Daniel C.W. ******** or D.C.W. I used to write it over and over again so I could look at how good it looked and sounded.

Daniel was never a great scholar, he was charming and funny, polite and delightful but he didn't work hard, he just about scraped through without getting into trouble. He did a homework assignment once ..yes ONCE and he made a truly impressive model of a volcano, so astounded were his teachers, so thrilled that here he was with evidence that when he wanted to he could do something well, that they put that volcano in a glass fronted cabinet in the school foyer, in the hope that this would encourage Daniel to strive for more glory and satisfaction. It failed miserably, he used to say " I did it once, they loved it, that'll do them for a few years"

He left school with few if any qualifications and he couldn't have cared less. Once he had left school, he changed, now it seemed that he could learn because he wanted to and he DID want to and so he went to college as well as working full time and by the time he was 19 he was a qualified chef, barman, manager and who knows what else, he was managing a beautiful restaurant at 20 and then the hotel he hated until last week.

He has won awards while working for the police, he has been in TV and in newspapers having been involved in catching bad men and scary people. He has been chased through streets by men with guns, he has been beaten up and injured and he loves every moment.

He called me today after his first day and he was so happy, he loves it, met good people, it is the most splendid thing to know your child is happy.

He's alright, he is. He is more than alright.