Years ago one of my friends was showing her very elderly parents around Sydney's nightlife area.

One of the girls said something to her old Dad & Mum who hadn't heard what she said, sez. "Who is that girl? How do you know her?" in a very demanding voice.

Dad just smiled & kept shuffling along. And probably stood taller on his walking sticks!

Now for a not so funny story.

I was walking to work one cold winter morning (well, it was cold for inner city Sydney) & I saw a poor young girl in a sleeveless mini-dress standing swaying in the only patch of sunshine in the street. I assumed she hadn't made enough to pay her pimp, or buy drugs as it was close to 10am.

Probably the worse sight I saw was 2 young girls on a street corner one day, obviously runaways from suburbia, as they were still wearing normal suburban clothes, not the skimpy uniform of 'hardened' street girls. I could only hope the Salvos or other similar minded people found them before they got thoroughly enmeshed in the drug/vice culture.

sandra