THERE’S been a startling bout of common sense in our courts this week.

Magistrates in Salisbury found in favour of three families who went head to head with Swindon Borough Council over taking their children out of school during term time.

The council handed out fines to the parents. The parents disputed the fines. The ensuing court process lasted seven months and no doubt took its toll on the families involved.

One mum said she had been “petrified” of having to go to court and described the experience as an “emotional rollercoaster”.

Meanwhile, a father of one of the children said he objected to being labelled a criminal.

“All we want to do as parents is do the right thing by our children and sometimes the best thing for a family is to have a holiday,” he said.

Hear that, folks? The voice of reason has spoken.

Hopefully this means local authorities and the powers that be behind these rules will go back to the drawing board and work out a less antagonistic and draconian way of dealing with absenteeism.

I mean, there’s a huge difference between a child with a poor attendance record and a child who occasionally has a few days off to go on a holiday, or attend a family event or the like.

It’s such a long time since I went to school now I can’t remember if I missed school days to go on holiday but I do remember September being a favoured month for our annual trip so I guess I must have here and there.

And as far as I can tell, it never did me any harm. After all, as a kid, learning comes in many forms.

There’s the obvious classroom-based lessons through which we learn our three Rs and so on.

There’s helping in the garden or around the house, which teaches us what worms feel like and how easy it is to break a vase. There’s listening in on adults’ conversations, which teaches us things we don’t understand until we’re grown up ourselves, and there’s going on holiday.

Our family holidays taught me a great deal over the years. Here are a few of the main points I picked up.

All photographs are improved by including the family car in them. A snap of pretty brook in Wales isn’t a patch on a snap of a pretty brook in Wales with Dad’s Hillman Hunter parked in front of it.

If you stop on a steep hill, the car will roll backwards and you will face certain death. I know this from the way my mother would scream if Dad slowed to a halt and let the car roll (to wind her up deliberately, I realised, many moons later).

You can sit on the beach and enjoy yourself in all weathers in the UK, especially if you have a windbreak. Perserverance is the name of the game.

Sandwiches are nicer with sand in them, if only because it reminds you you are on holiday. And it’s probably where they get their name — sandwiches.

Water only ever tastes right in your own home.

Beautiful shiny pebbles are not worth keeping and taking home because the minute they become dry they turn dull and boring and look just like the stones in your own garden.

People in other parts of the country have funny accents. There is nothing funny about the Birmingham accent, however, because that’s how my family speaks, so that is normal.

Mums don’t really get holidays because they still do all the cooking, tidying and cleaning up they’d be doing at home. This is called self-catering.

Beware of lifts — teddy bears can become trapped in them resulting in disaster. If you find yourself in this situation crying and screaming is the best course of action.

Don’t share a room with someone who likes the windows open if you’re scared of the dark and want the lights kept on. This is how you attract moths and although you will grow out of your fear of the dark, you will never grow out of your fear of moths.

Having a funny Turner

I’M thinking of entering the Turner Prize next year. I’ve got my installation all planned out and now it’s just a question of collecting all the materials. Which is easy because my chosen medium drops through my letterbox with alarming frequency. I’m going to make a huge sculpture of a tree out of all the junk mail I receive. In my acceptance speech, I shall explain at length about how my work has been inspired by the senseless cruelty of our throwaway culture which destroys our beautiful forests in order to create meaningless flyers for pizza restaurants and Indian takeaways, which nobody reads anyway. Well. I can’t think what else to do with it. Tree chopped down, paper made, paper turned into leaflet, leaflet delivered, leaflet sent to recycling plant... probably to be pulped and turned into yet another leaflet. Doesn’t this drive anyone else mad?

Three cheers for what?

“AND Bezukladnikov is moving in for the final push now, will she make it... she’s trying, you can see the strain on her face — yes! yes! yes! — Bezukladnikov has shaken her pompom in time to the music. Now that is brilliant...” Well, words such as these are what I imagine will form at least part of the commentary of the Olympic games in future now that cheerleading has been recognised as an official Olympic sport. It turns out flouncingaround in shiny minidresses waving clusters of brightly-coloured streamers is on a par with throwing the javelin, running 1500 metres and swimming lap after lap at high speed. Good to know. So I presume Toni Basil’s Hey Micky will soon become the official training video for wouldbe Olympians. What are they going to include next? Tiddlywinks? At least I might have a chance of winning gold in that