EVERY morning, before he goes to school, Duncan Speirs shaves his father and helps him dress. After school he does not hang around to spend time with his friends, he goes straight home to make sure his parents are not alone. In the evenings Duncan reads the newspaper to his father before helping him take a bath. Recently he took time off school to care for his father while his mother was in hospital.

Duncan's sister Nicola's commitment to her parents is the same, but her duties are somewhat different. On her free days from Falkirk college, where she is studying accountancy, she stays at home to ensure a constant presence in the house. Her household chores include the family's ironing and most of the cooking.

Duncan and Nicola's mother Anne is an epileptic and their father, also named Duncan, was blinded seven months ago as the result of an illness relating to

kidney disease combined with diabetes. Eight-een years ago, Duncan gave up his job as a

foreman to care for his wife

who at that point was suffering up to 10 epileptic seizures every day. After he went blind he could no longer care for his wife, and the couple turned to their children for help.

Next week (June 8-14) is National Carers Week, and for a brief period the spotlight will fall on those who are perhaps the most forgotten people in our society. They are the 60,000 people in Scotland who care either full-time or part-time for a relative or friend at home at an estimated saving of #2500m to the taxpayer. Nationwide it is estimated there are 6.8 million carers.

If we think about carers at all, we think about the middle-aged who care for an elderly parent, or parents who care for a disabled child. We do not usually think about the growing numbers of children, like Nicola and Duncan, who care for their parents often to the detriment of their school and social lives.

Although it is not known exactly how many children under the age of 16 play a major role in caring for their parents or other adults it is estimated that the figure could reach 40,000 nationwide. Of these more than half will be living in single-parent families, and while some children care for the physically disabled, others tend to those with mental health problems. Many of the chores performed by these children, of whom as many as half could be as young as 11, involve intimate care.

If offering care is sometimes hard, accepting help from children is a problem disabled parents find difficult to overcome. Anne Speirs feels guilty that her children have been robbed of ''part of their youth and their freedom, because they cannot go out and do their own thing, and be with friends''. And yet, she knows that if she were to suffer a seizure during their absence, her husband would be unable to put her in the recovery position and remove the sharp objects with which she might unwittingly damage herself.

Meanwhile, her husband, who misses not being able to watch his son play football, says: ''it is hard to ask the children to do things. I have had to come to terms with my blindness, and work with it the best I can. It has been a learning process. Being dependent is very hard because I used to do a lot of running around.'' And yet he is quick to point out that he is very fortunate, in that he has everything he needs, and that he usually does not have to ask for help, and if he does, he says, he finds Nicola and Duncan are always willing.

But how do the children feel about the need to maintain a schedule that ensures there is always an extra presence in the house with their parents? What about the restrictions to their freedom? The time off school? Duncan, 16, whose dream it is to play for Rangers, shows neither a trace of bitterness nor appears to begrudge the extra effort involved in making up missed school work. ''I am used to having restrictions,'' he says. ''it doesn't really bother me. If I want to go out and kick a football I can leave the front door open. The situation has brought us closer together as a family. We can talk to our mum and dad about anything and they can tell us what is going on.''

His friends, he says, who are aware of the situation, congregate at his house, where Anne and Duncan clearly make them feel welcome. They come to talk, to watch videos, to eat the meals Nicola helps her mother prepare, and they come to spend the night.

In this, their 10th anniversary year, in the 50th anniversary of the National Health Service, the Carers National Association is intent on making sure that the availability of the services it has to offer becomes known to the general public. Indeed, Anne Speirs herself found out about the organisation by accident, from a friend.

Now, the couple enjoy two visits a week from volunteers, who take them wherever they need to go, be it shopping or just running errands. This break in the weekly routine, Anne says, is good not only for her husband, but also for her children.

If National Carers Week is intended to focus attention on the plight of those who may be trapped and forgotten behind closed doors, often without sufficient knowledge of the benefits available to them, it also intends to focus attention on the spiritual life of carers.

According to Denise Guthrie of the Carers National Association in Glasgow, the spiritual side of their lives helps. ''We are trying to spread the message to carers who may not have thought about their faith, and encourage them to move outside the existing social work parameters and get in touch with their spiritual lives.''

For the entire Speirs family, who are committed Christians, their spiritual life is of vital importance. Their faith, Anne says, has been the linchpin on which the daily battle with their health and care problems has rested, and it is something they agree carers of all denominations should nurture carefully.

''This last year has been wearing,'' Anne says. ''we did not think this time last year we should have to take so much on. We just hang on to our faith, we have never been let down. Duncan and I are proud of our children, they are a blessing to us, and we have an excellent rapport with them. I don't know what we would have done without them.''

Picture: PHIL RIDER