Think about it: no more bickering about whose CD you play; no more constant demands from the back of the car to put on track 12 (for the 51st time). I stumbled upon this simple solution when, years ago, I bought a couple of compilations of the Radio 4 show I'm Sorry, I haven't a Clue (BBC Audiobooks, around £12.99).I really bought it for my husband and myself, but when I put it on as we drove to Dorset one year, the whole family loved it. But what do you play in the car on a long journey when the children get older and begin to develop their own musical tastes? Answer: the spoken word. So, you've been through the "Wheels on the Bus" stage and the mind-numbing, endless renditions of "Nellie the Elephant" and "Row, row row your boat". They drip with weird sauces which we don't see in Walthamstow but they are no compensation.
When he asks me to come with him again I will say no and a chapter of our lives - one that includes the precious memory of sleeping in the Austin Maxi in a layby together - will be over. I am sad about that all the way home.And it will come back to me 20 years later, when he and I are among the crowds on the seafront close to my home watching an air display and he turns to tell my son that the Red Arrows are coming, only to look back at me with alarm and say, "Have you seen Jake?". To a witless pre-pubescent these tragedies were finer entertainment than even an Atari or a Chopper could provide. So I have been frightened to tears before at air displays and loved it But not today.I am tired, alone and scared I will never forget this moment. Not even when Dad bumbles out of the sea of strangers carrying the most enormous burgers ever.
I've seen a Starfighter go into the ground with a crump and a Mitchell Marauder disappear into the valley beyond the perimeter of an airfield The ashes and smoky debris fell on us like sooty rain. I am wedged between a rough-hewn wooden fence, keeping a huge crowd back from a runway, and the stomach of an extremely overweight and smelly man He looks down at me and smiles I shriek I shout, to his alarm This is not my father. Where is my father? But my cries are drowned by the shoe-shaking sound of a Harrier jumpjet. It is not easy to find your dad when you are lost among 300,000 people at the largest American airbase in the country.
