Anyone who has the privilege of becoming a grandparent will tell you how precious that experience is. Somehow, when you brought up your own children, you were far too involved to appreciate the way they were developing day by day. A lot of angst got in the way of deriving pleasure from watching a personality appear as if from nowhere. It is said that the grandparent experience is better because you can give them back. There is probably some truth in that; the sheer energy required to look after lively little people is more than most senior citizens can survive except in short bursts. It may also be something to do with the fact of possessing another couple of decades of life’s experience with all its ups and downs.

We have two and we are lucky to see them on a regular basis as they live nearby. Daniel is now 18 months and he is beginning to want to organise the world around him. That toddle truck needs to be at the top of the steps rather than the bottom so great effort is put into achieving this important goal. He must feed himself, even if it is Spaghetti, no matter how much ends up on his bib or littered around the kitchen floor. And how dare anyone try and dress him in the morning when he is quietly going about other important tasks. He is getting pretty good at communicating although it is a special language which can only be interpreted by experts in grunts and facial expression. Gesturing is getting better and on the whole we can understand what he wants more times than not.

Aidan is going to school in September. He hardly needs to go to school as he know everything about diggers and dumper trucks, including a lot of songs about them. He is bound to know a lot more than his teacher on this important subject. How many primary school teachers are experts in backhoe loaders and flatbed trucks? He and I have a special interest in malapropisms. He is, after all, a ‘baughty noy’ some of the time. We were travelling in the car this week when he picked up a road atlas. He told us he found maps interesting and his new word for that he said was to be “minteresting” – being interested in maps. It’s amazing to see a young imagination developing from a silly game that we play together.

I have generally tried to be positive about the next generation. I do not believe this nonsense about the world going to the dogs. I groan when I hear people say ‘the problem with young people today is….’ I’d rather share the sentiments of Vince Cable bemoaning Brexit and talking about the older generation selling the birth right of the young. We are a generation who have never had it so good and yet all we do is moan about the way the world is just not like the way it used to be. If that were the true then it is surely our generation who are the ones to blame.

There are some disturbing things happening in the world; witness the tension over North Korea, terrorism and the awful events which have recently taken place in Charlottesville USA. There are forces which want to drive wedges between different people and blame those who are different from us. Anyone who gives permission to exaggerate those differences and tensions needs to be condemned and taken to task. I have spent my life trying to overcome such divisions.

Our lovely and beautiful grandchildren depend on us to deliver a world which has an atmosphere that is not being polluted and a world where we have learned to understand each other and rejoice in our differences.