This will be a crucial and fascinating year for Forest.

He was, according to one scholar, "the most important single influence on French policy in the crucial year of 1741."

In the crucial last year, he has not worn well.

Then, after guiding the nation through its crucial first years, he went home to die in his own bed.

But what is the role of the parents during these crucial years?

As events happened, 1995 was the crucial year - though it hardly looked that way at the time.

Nor do we give a child a name until that first crucial year is past.

There are so many different ways to get through these crucial years.

The date is more or less 1959, the crucial year when I was, mostly, fifteen years old.

But 2009, as I said, is going to be a crucial year for the global climate change negotiations.