I nearly died on my gap year

00:00 04:50

Toby Young has narrated this article for you to listen to.

By the time you read this, my son Ludo will be in South America, where he’s gone for what remains of his gap year. He deferred his university place and has been working in a pub since he left school, trying to earn enough money to go travelling. I made the mistake of telling him I’d match whatever he managed to save, imagining he’d struggle to put aside more than £500. Turns out, the little bugger saved more than £5,000! Still, he’s going to need £10,000 to pay his expenses. He’s spending the first four months in Brazil and doesn’t speak a word of Portuguese, so will struggle to get a part-time job, even in a bar. His girlfriend is joining him in four months and they’re planning to embark on a South American tour, beginning with Peru.

For reasons I find hard to explain, I feel more anxious about Ludo going away than I did about my daughter Sasha, who spent her gap year in Mexico. Unlike Ludo, who’s gone with his best friend, she went on her own, and, on the face of it, teenage girls are more vulnerable than teenage boys. That’s not true when it comes to murder – roughly 80 per cent of victims are men – but it’s true of being kidnapped, where the ratio is reversed. Yet I’m more worried about Ludo being abducted than I was about Sasha and have gone through some ‘proof of life’ questions with him: favourite chicken takeaway, favourite Marvel superhero, etc. If I do get a ransom demand, he’s forbidden me to fly out and lead the negotiations since he’s worried the kidnappers will decide that killing him is preferable to arguing with me.

I suppose I should be pleased that he’s adventurous enough to go on this trip.