Status Anxiety: Once upon a time on the motorway

After my recent column about the horrors of travelling with my four children, I got a sweet letter from a 17-year-old called Tara Vivian-Neal recommending the wheeze that her parents came up with to keep her and her brother quiet on long car journeys: audiobooks.

‘Black Ships Before Troy, The Iliad and Tales of William Shakespeare have forever been drummed into my head,’ she wrote. ‘When a story as captivating as King Lear or Macbeth is read aloud you totally immerse yourself and bickering and fighting is ­forgotten.’

Now, I’m not so naive as to think that my children’s attention could be captured by Tales of William Shakespeare. Gnomeo and Juliet is about their level — and even that was considered a bit highbrow by seven-year-old Ludo, who still struggles with SpongeBob SquarePants. But before our trip to Cornwall over the Easter break I decided to give it a whirl and made a few purchases.