Many of my children are not happy with toys. They want to play with the “real thing”. One has taken this a bit too far recently and wants to run along the road with vehicles. This worked out on the feast of Corpus Christi this year, when, as we were attending the procession after Mass in a nearby village, he realised his ambition walking in the street where cars normally are (and was then removed, indignant, from oncoming traffic).

I relate to this rapturous fascination entirely, and would want to get as close to exciting vehicles as I could, watching planes take off and hearing engines roar. As I look at my children at play, I am struck by the outright seriousness of their endeavours. A child knows if he is being fobbed off, then, and can tell, from any age, that you are holding back the Great Powers from him – power tools, for example.