Critical Reflection: Confused and Concerned

Initially my idea for this column had been to go to the torchlight procession and write about better uses of money than fireworks, or about the stereotypically members of the public who attend events such as this. However as soon as I saw the torches being handed out and being given to children I decided that it would be better to change the angle of my column.

The issue of health and safety is something that is often in the media, but more often than not policies draw media attention because they are overly cautions. I thought that writing about the total absence of health and safety would make my piece more interesting because it would be different to what the reader would expect.

I wanted to include some ridiculous health and safety rules with the piece to act as a contrast to the violations I had seen at the event. At first I included the examples in this way:

It seems absurd to me that in a world where children are not allowed to play conkers without safety goggles, take a pencil case into the classroom or use floatation devices, that they were being allowed to hold flaming torches.

I was not happy with the way I had done this because I felt that what I had written was too lengthy and did not read as dramatically or humorously as it could do. For this reason, I decided to start the piece with the extreme health and safety rules. I did this so that the reader would expect the column to be another piece about how out of control health and safety rules have become, and would then be surprised to find it is actually about the lack of health and safety.

I chose to state the health and safety rules in a FAQ style. I did this because I thought it would be more interested to read than a block of text stating the rules. The first three questions should make the reader expect the answers to be yes, and the fact that the answers are no would make the reader assume that the answer to the last question would definitely be no.

I thought it would be a good idea to include the fact that, even at 19, I found the torches difficult and dangerous to carry to give a sense of how dangerous it would be for a child to be holding one. I described the children as 'weaving through the crowds, in a hyped up, squealing frenzy holding what one child described as a "fire gun"' to highlight the chaos of the situation, which added to the danger. I decided to include one child's description of the torch as a 'fire gun' to make the point that the children were aware of how dangerous what they were carrying were, and that, at least that one child, was intending to use it as a weapon in his game.

When describing the father who had his child up on his shoulders, I made the comparison of the child's jacket to making him look like 'the Michelin Man'. I thought that this would be a comical comparison, as most readers will recognise the image of the Michelin Man, and would then be able to picture the jacket I was describing even if they had never seen a child in one before.

I ended the piece by describing my genuine confusion between whether it would have been better to health and safety regulations in that situation, or whether it was better to let people have one night where they could be careless. I did this partly to share my feelings about the whole night and partly to get the reader to think about whether it is better to try and prevent accidents or to just live carelessly and deal with accidents if they occur.