I distinctly remember that the “back to school” signs didn’t go up in the shops until about two weeks before the end of the holidays when I was young. When the signs went up, my heart would sink and the remainder of the holidays would be tainted with the oncoming threat of school and the end of freedom.

This may have been heightened by my attending boarding school which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t too bad when it wasn’t my turn to take the crap.

We didn’t go on holiday. Going home was special enough. Summer holidays were endless days of making and building and cycling and grubbing around in hedgerows, studying wildlife and generally hanging out and remembering what family life should be about.

Then the signs went up in shops and the countdown would begin.

So why do W H Smiths now put their “back to school” signs up the moment the summer holidays have begun – before most people have even left for Spain or the damp caravan in Porthcawl? Don’t they know the torture they are inflicting on the children of the nation, or do children who live at home not feel the same way as I did then?

My holidays were never the same as the local kids. I’d always have a few days when I’d be hanging around on my own while the rest of the world seemed to have gone back to a school routine. It could sometimes feel like I was special, allowed out when others weren’t, but then I’d see the “back to school” signs in the shops and I’d shrink into myself, wondering if some truancy officer might catch me and not believe my story and lock me up in some awful place for children that don’t go back to school when they’re told to.