The front door rule

As part of the England Project we have always tried to stress upon the young lad that certain rules should be followed to ensure safety. The rules are many but one that I am sure is shared with many other families is the front door rule.

Never, we say, never open the front door to someone unless one of us is with you. A simple rule which is there for a simple reason; anyone can ring our front door bell. The law will not allow us to wire it up to the mains as a preventative measure so we have to cope best as we can with house rules and the like.

So, yesterday evening I get home and as I am pulling onto the driveway I see a man standing at the open front door to my house chatting to the young lad. No Mrs. England Project in sight.

It turns out that she was in the back garden and had no idea that the doorbell had rung and the little lad had, contrary to instruction, opened the door and struck up a conversation with the stranger.

Imagine my surprise when I got to the door and interrupted their little parlay only to discover that the stranger was in fact a professional politician (well, local councillor but that’s a sub-group of the same species surely). The shock! This is exactly the kind of thing we warned the lad about! A textbook example of why we need the front door rule.

Yes, yes, I know the lefty readers among you will say that all I need to do is put up a few stickers saying NO POLITICIANS or NO AGENTS OF THE STATE or what have you but honestly, don’t you think I haven’t already tried that?!