"I FEEL angry that all these years we could have spent together were wasted in one mad moment."

Anyone who comes across this line in Mandie Langdown's moving tribute to her son will already be aware of both the facts surrounding his death and the heartache that his mum is suffering 14 months on.

For those of us with children - particularly with teenage children embarking on a life behind the wheel of a car or handlebars of a motorcycle - it's very much a case of there but for the grace of God go all of us.

However much we moan about our youngsters - their strange habits, their strange friends, their stranger music and their ability to frustrate us - nothing could prepare us for the void left by their untimely departure from this life.

Mandie has already forgiven the apologetic young man whose physical inability to cope with a large motorbike tragically led to Craig Langdown's death.

For that, she has proved herself to be a very strong and kind woman.

It is doubtless forgiveness born out of an inability to rage any more against the sheer frustration of a life cut short.

What Mandie Langdown wants - indeed what she deserves - is for no other mother to have to go through this pain.

She wants parents and any bike rider to recognise that they are riding or driving a potentially lethal machine that in the wrong hands can result in the kind of constant agony she has to endure.

Sadly, even the most optimistic person would sense the fruitlessness of this plea, as someone, somewhere will make the same mistakes again - and again.

Perhaps reading Mandie's story today might make a few of them think.