My two youngest daughters returned to school today with only the smallest amount of whinging. They think school is OK, but would be better if the teachers would just stop interfering in their social lives by trying to make them actually do some work.

They take after their father, who deeply resented efforts to contain him within a classroom. From his very first day in Reception class, when he was put in the back seat of the car (without a child seat or even a seatbelt, they weren’t compulsory in those days), slid across the seat, leapt out the other door and sprinted off down the road, his mother, and the school, realised they had a problem on their hands.

Frequent applications of the cane, or occasionally the plimsoll (this was also before the abolition of corporal punishment), did little to inspire a love of learning. Teachers rather unkindly told him he would grow up to be the village idiot.

At 16, however, he became an apprentice, loved his new job, swotted at college in the evenings and scored distinctions in all his exams.

So there is hope yet for my girls. And if they offer a GCSE in This Season’s Style at New Look, the 14-year-old will get an A*.