Beyond the birds, bees, marrows and sniggers ...

Half a century ago, sex education in some schools was rudimentary - not to say ludicrous.

In a local school, then a single-sex establishment where segregation (at least as far as the school gates which were used jointly by the adjoining girls' school) was sternly enforced, 12-year-old boys had been fertilising marrow plants in the Science Lab by taking pollen from the male to the female flower with a brush.

The class' scheduled "sex education" lesson (singular) had been awaited with some eagerness by the lads.

Just minutes from the end of the lesson, a red-faced Science teacher stumbled through an analogy with marrows. This left one half of the class confused about how a brush could form part of adult life and the more worldly-wise half sniggering at the master's ineptitude.

Four decades of easy availability of the contraceptive pill have followed since that lesson.

Four decades when what was euphemistically referred to in the past in hushed tones as "the facts of life" have been replaced by open, more enlightened school Science have been, laudably, accompanied by debate on relationships and responsibilities.

But have we made progress?

In the days when boys were taught how marrows reproduced and left to draw their own behind-the-bikesheds deductions there were inevitable casualties.

A few girls left in deepest shame. Unwanted babies were snatched away for adoption or an upbringing in the strict confines of a children's home. A few boys hung their heads.

To some extent, the casualties were an inevitable result of a social climate which did not explain or discuss led alone offer responsible guidance.

That Rother Homes is helping fund the launch of a new Young Parents Peer Education Project locally is entirely worthy.

That the project is necessary because six per cent of 15 to 17-year-old girls locally are having unplanned babies (compared with a UK average of 4%) shows that in practical terms society has not progressed that far since the Fifties.

The young parents' project is certainly worthy of further support when Rother Homes' funding ends.

But surely there is an even greater need for an initiative which will bring us nearer the age-old ideal that babies will be brought into the world only in circumstances where they are wanted and will be cherished and loved in a stable home environment.