Kids behaviour - and the reason for it - is often hard to discover. Whenever I read stuff like this, I think back to my own childhood - around 11 or 12. We got up to all sorts of naughtinesses - this would be in the very early '50s in a small industrial village in south-east Lancashire.

I recall,one day just before November 5th, me and a friend stuffed lighted threepenny bangers (fireworks) into an airbrick in the side of a house - just for fun. It couldn't have done any damage, but they were pretty loud. In the middle of our 'fun', we felt huge, gloved hands on our shoulders - the hands of the local cop on the beat.

"What do you want to do?", he asked us, "get taken home to your parents by me, or apologise to the old man who lives here?" No contest! Being taken home would have meant a belting - so we knocked on the door and, very humbly, apologised. The old man took it in good part, we got a good talking to by the bobby - and a swift clip round the ear before being sent off home.

The point is, though, that even 'good' kids can do inexplicable things sometimes from motives that we don't really know. Boredom, curiosity, simple naughtiness. I think it's part of the revolution that kids need to experience as part of growing up. Most get over it and through it - some don't.