Breast-Feeding and Jury Service

You can always count on your hidebound and old-fashioned Pedant-General sticking his nose in where it is least expected and even less welcome. This time, it is to the thorny topic of breast-feeding. [maybe "thorny" isn't quite the word I am looking for, most especially in this context. Ouch.]

I have been mulling over this topic for some time - haven't we all? - but have been prompted to publish by this little quip from Mr Seat. His, otherwise laudable, suggestion that breast-feeding mothers should move to Scotland - Lord alone knows our birthrate is miserable - misses one crucial point: Jury Service. Keen-eyed followers of this will, of course, have noted that a court room is not

"a place where children are"

and is therefore not covered by the bill.

Oddly enough, I have a very personal angle on this. You will have noted that the youngest master P-G is still but a babe-in-arms, albeit an absolutely huge one. So it was with a degree of horror that Lady P-G received a letter from HM's Court Service, informing her that she was in the frame for jury service. There was a certain amount of consternation in the grace and favour apartment, but this was overcome and a letter duly dispatched to the clerk of the Sheriff Court, explaining that - whilst Lady P-G understood the gravity of her duty - the youngest master Pedant-General is still at his mother's breast and is therefore part of the bargain, unless the clerk might agree to a deferral: if the clerk wished to avail himself of Lady P-G's services in the capacity of Juror now, he would have to put up with a certain degree of mewling and puking as well - an "all or nothing" deal, possibly even "double or quits" if you will. We suspected that his presence (youngest Master P-G, that is, not the clerk of the court) might not be conducive to the orderly conduct of the criminal justice system, endearing though he undoubtedly is. (Again, youngest Master P-G, that is, not the clerk of the court - I have no comment as to the endearingness or otherwise of the clerk).

To his immense credit, the clerk agreed (to the deferral, not the endearingness of the youngest master P-G: he appeared to have no comment on that). Let us not have complaints on the inflexibility of this nation's civil servants.