How to avoid disasters on a family holiday

Waving us off, my wise old dad had one piece of advice. “Just look after the children”, he said. Yes, well. We haven’t had any total disasters, but blimey, have we come close. But now that we are on the last leg of our journey, I feel ready to share tips to anyone else barmy enough to go long-haul for a couple of months with a tribe of children. 

I was prepared for all eventualities. Well, everything which can be solved via Calpol and Pooh Bear plasters. Also head lice shampoo and tummy bug medicine. These have all been useful. But the most important thing of all has sometimes been in short supply, and that has been a problem. I’m talking about Parental Attention.

We chose to go around the world doing the day job at the same time, you see. Mr Millard is the director and I am the reporter. For six TV shows. “How on earth will you manage to do this?” inquired friends when we launched this idea back in civilisation.

“What will the children do while you are doing the filming and reporting?” We laughed, proud to be free of any assitance from nanny or aupair.

“They will run about at our feet,” I said, with an assurance which now seems quite mad. “Learn French. Help with the filming. Join in.”

Ho hum. Although there has been a modicum of French going on, examples of helping with the filming has been zero and Joining In has also proved rather sporadic. Nobody’s fault, but there you are.

Which means that on this trip, the Junior Millards, (aged 12, 9, 6 and 4) have been somewhat left to their own devices. As any parent will know, this is a recipe for potential mishap.

At infrequent times I have left Phoebe, our eldest, in charge. With a clearly written list of phone numbers, a big piece of paper reading AU SECOURS (just in case) and a easily memorable mantra “No Knives, No Matches, No Windows Open”. And she managed brilliantly. But because of school, she could only join us half way through, after we had encountered without doubt the most dangerous moment on our trip.

This was in the savage, sticky  wilds of French Guyana. We were interviewing a teacher, James Pritchard, on the banks of the giant Maroni river which marks the border between French Guyana and Surinam. It was about 90 degrees in the sun. All the children were in the back of the car, which we had stupidly parked up on the slipway above the vast, brown waterway. The engine was idly running, because, you know, we wanted the air conditioning on.

Just as I got to a particularly key moment with James, we were distantly,  yet distinctly aware of the  car engine  furiously revving up. Gabriel, 9, had moved into the driver’s seat. His younger siblings were still strapped in the back. His foot was on the gas. It would have only taken a slip of the handbrake  for the car to inexorably start rolling down the steep slipway into the murky depths of the Maroni. Would we have been able to stop it? Of course not. Would they have been able to get out? Ditto. It still makes me lose my breath to think about the unthinkable.

So, a lesson learned. Pay more attention. But not so much so that you focus entirely on one to the disadvantage of the others. Two weeks later, we were in the sandy heaven of Bora Bora. And while I was taking one child to our  bungalow, Gabriel (again), managed to somehow spin himself over a rope bridge and crash down about four feet onto a coral shelf above a lake. Mercifully, only a nasty series of  grazes ensued. But again, what if he had hit his head, what if he had fallen into the water? and so on.

So, pay more attention. But also give your charges a LOT of things to do. Shouting and yelling in the back of vans/speedboats/traditional Polynesian canoe boats has nearly driven Mr Millard and I to complete insanity,  during which we have seriously considered murdering the lot of them.

Simple, cheap and portable remedies such as packs of cards, paperback books,  colouring books, and pads of lined paper (great for Boxes, Hangman, Consequences) have been total saviours here, as are games such as I Spy or Charades. These all last a lot longer than (say) keeping a single child quiet with a Game Boy, which in my experience will only be fought over and ultimately broken. You don’t need to take vast amounts of games from home either, since you can pick up a pack of cards almost anywhere on the planet.

Also, although it sounds incredibly dull and middle-aged, keep off the sauce. Once they are all in bed, fine. But even though we’ve been travelling around the French overseas empire, where a decent supply of Appellation Controllee is regarded as crucial to life as oxygen and clean water, I’ve been careful to keep a sober head in the day.

What’s the message, then? If you are going somewhere vaguely civilised, don’t bother taking an entire chemist’s shop of  medicine with you. It’s much more important to keep a clear head,  pay attention, particularly at busy times (most accidents happen at arrivals and departures),  and remember to have that pack of Happy Families always at hand. And then you will continue to be one.