British Prime Minister Briefly Adopts One Child Left Behind

Published 4:16 pm Thursday, June 21, 2012

British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife, Samantha, accidentally left their eight-year-old daughter Nancy in a country pub, according to recent press reports confirmed by the PM's office.

Could happen to anyone.

Looking at the bright side, Britain's First Couple did remember two of their children and two out of three ain't bad.

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Statistically, it's above average.

The family had been having lunch, as many Brits are wont to do, in their local public house, The Plough, in the small village of Cadsden, little knowing a comic film was in the offing.

Pub Alone.

Pub Alone 2: Good Yorkshire Pudding Gone Wild.

Pub Alone 3-D: That's A Real Steak And Kidney Pie I've Laid For Breakfast.

Scriptwriters must be drooling at the BBC and no doubt the political opposition is dreaming up some way to make electoral bangers out of the PM's mash.

But, really, it's the kind of thing that happens every day.

How many of us, in all honesty, can really say we've gone to a pub, the grocery store, or hydroelectric plant and not left one of our children behind?

Well, no, I haven't. And, because you are perceptive enough to read this column without suffering major difficulties, I know that none of you have done so.

In fact, the Prime Minister of Great Britain and his wife are only such parents I can think of who have left their kid in a pub and gone home.

But when you're head of state, with so much on your mind, it is easy to be too distracted to check with your spouse to make sure all the children are present and accounted for.

I mean, look at the number of times Barack and Michelle have…No, they haven't left their children in a pub, either, come to think of it.

Shakespeare might have written this Cameron forget-me-gosh screenplay, given the concatenation of circumstances.

The Camerons and their three children arrived at the pub in two vehicles, complete with bodyguards. Young Nancy went to use the bathroom and the family decided it was time to leave. David got in one car and Samantha and two of the children piled in another vehicle.

Classically, David thought Nancy was with Samantha, who assumed the youngster was with David.

Nancy was left in the pub for 15 minutes before the mistake was recognized after the couple returned home to the palatial Chequers, the country house of British Prime Ministers when they are not vulnerable to forgetting and leaving a child in the more metropolitan London pubs. David went back to The Plough and brought Nancy back home.

Good egg.

But one might have expected that between two parents, two siblings and official bodyguards someone might have spotted that, Oy! Little Nancy's scarpered or summat.

Crikey.

Crumbs.

Ooo er.

The Associated Press quotes an unnamed spokeswoman for Mr. Cameron as revealing, “the prime minister and Samantha were distraught when they realized Nancy wasn't with them. Thankfully, when they phoned the pub she was there safe and well.”

In all seriousness, we're very glad this story ended up as one we can chuckle about.

And regard as a lesson to us all.

When it comes to our children, never assume a single solitary thing.