Four kids – what were we thinking?

You’d think the little buggers would be grateful. Caroline and I had just shelled out for our two middle children — Freddie, 11, and Ludo, 13 — to spend a week in Austria on the school’s half-term ski trip. It meant we couldn’t afford to leave the house for the whole of February, but we stupidly paid for their sister to go on the same trip last year so felt we had no choice. Yet as soon as they came back they wanted to know where we were going on holiday this summer.

Ten years ago, they were more than happy to go to Cornwall, which suited me down to the ground. I would sit on the beach behind a windbreak, reading a James Ellroy novel, while the children pottered about in the sand. We’d have pasties for lunch, followed by an ice cream from Roskilly’s, and then, in the late afternoon, go for a walk along the coastal path.

I liked the simplicity of it, the innocence. Above all, I liked the fact that it was cheap. Renting a three-bedroom house on the north coast cost about £1,000 and there were no flights to pay for — ruinous when you have four children. I would happily repeat that holiday every year until they cart me off to a retirement home.

‘All my friends are going to Greece,’ said 15-year-old Sasha — an unhelpful intervention. I thought one of the benefits of sending my children to state schools was that Caroline and I would avoid getting locked into a status battle with the other parents, something that seems to afflict all our mates who’ve gone private.

But Sasha wasn’t exaggerating: an alarming number of her friends seem to go on wildly extravagant summer holidays.