When I was teaching, the populations of children from abroad in our classes changed over the years, in particular, black children were more likely to come from Africa than the Caribbean.

I was made aware of the differences in belief on one occasion when, after reading a story I felt quite innocent in which there was a character who was a witch, a mother asked me, very strongly, not to do so again, as "we believe these people exist". I can't remember if it was a folk story, or one of Diana Wynne Jones novels, but obviously the child had been disturbed and gone home to share their feelings.

I was taken aback. I don't believe that the family concerned would have been involved in any thing like these dreadful events, which I was not aware of at the time. I put it in my mental list of family attitudes which are a nuisance, as in the case of the Mormons who did not want me to mention evolution, the JWs who did not want any celebrations of anything, the Exclusive Brethren who did not want their children to be in IT lessons, or the current one, the mother who does not want me to ask her daughter to use more than one float in the swimming pool. (At least some of them did not want to dictate what was made available to the whole class.) I think I might have felt differently in the light of these recent cases.

It looks as though the word "witch" and its derivatives is being used as a translation of something quite different from either European or modern usage, and has more in common with European beliefs about changelings. Expecially when you look at the ways people tried to deal with such children. These are not adults who have entered into an activity by choice, but children who are victims of something external.

My feeling, to say irritably, "O grow up" has to be inappropriate, because a whole tranche of cultural and religious beliefs have to be dealt with gently.

Perhaps we need to say something like the legal conclusion that once he had breathed English air, a slave was free. When you come to Britain, you do not do this. It is not our culture, and here, you adopt ours in this matter. Like FGM. It doesn't happen.

I find myself drifting towards the right. Oh dear. Next thing I will be moaning about political correctness gone mad.

Penny