It’s a killer, realising that the kids are moving away from you, that you are no longer indispensable to them. But maybe maturity, as a parent, lies in accepting this is a cause for celebration as much as for sadness.

In October, having climbed one of the towers of Suffolk’s Framlingham Castle with my eldest boys Ethan and Ripley, I stepped out onto the narrow walkway leading around the top of the 13-metre-high curtain walls and felt my legs turn to jelly under me. At first I put it dow...


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