Maybe he should have paid a little more heed to the old adage of “look afore ye leap”, but that snippet of wisdom makes no mention of what one should do when everything seems straightforward and safe.

We have seen before that graveyards can be tricky places for young people to frequent, given that many cemeteries remain well stocked with the barbed burial trends of earlier days, marking the final resting place of departed relatives. In some examples it looks for all the world if the rellies had taken special measures to ensure the deceased stayed put in his or her appointed place.

It might seem logical to call for the removal of shoogly tombstones, spiky railings and other grave decorations, but it is also understandable that the living relatives of such people might object.

In my youth I was just as accident prone as I am in my later years, and if I spend a little time looking back over my life and thinking about some of the daft things I have done, the accidents I have had, and just how fortunate I am to survive them, it enables me to extend great sympathy with Connor and his plight. My specialities were falling out of trees, bicycle prangs and battles with my mates, using catapults and stones, with incautious handling of ferrets in there somewhere.

When it comes down to the real issue of Connor’s accident, it is all very well to state he should not have been where he was, or to badger for the railings to be removed, but neither will do one whit of good or prevent a similar accident occurring somewhere to somebody else. In fact, given the peer mimicry among teenagers, it would not surprise me at all if the location of Connor’s accident becomes the route of choice among them for a while.

Maybe a little public education of our kids would help, and in this I can commend the excellent Crucial Crew events as an example of how this might be achieved.

No matter how difficult it might seem, none of us should ever shrink from the task of trying to instil a little caution into the frequently dizzy minds of our young people.

z Read of the Week has had to be held over until next week due to lack of space.