There are no rules for cooking for children. It’s as much a case of pulling out whatever they liked yesterday, adding two tablespoons of hope, a couple of wild jokes, and mixing it all together gently with patience; when they won’t take that, give them what they wanted in the first place.

Just persevere. Every now and again, you will find they’ll take what they are given and enjoy it; before you know it, they’ll be eating what you’re eating, liking what you like, asking for favourites, your favourites. Even then don’t expect them all to be the same, despite the same family structure, routines, emphases. They’ll be chalk and cheese. One might eat anything and plenty of it, from birth; the other will take favourites and little of them, from first taste, and nothing else; and the third will be a bit of this and a bit of that.

I learnt these things very early. Number one daughter loves Weet-Bix; she adores strawberries. So why not the two together, as a treat? Wrong. She threw the lot across the table, and screamed for 20 minutes.

They all love muesli bars. So let’s make our own. Wrong again. They look the same as the commercial, they taste pretty much the same, but they don’t come in wrappers. Not interested.

Then there was fish. For weeks I tried my son with fish. No way. Then by a miracle, he happened by when I was trying a batch of finger- sized mackerel in the deep frier. This is a richly flavoured, rather oily fish, as often as not eaten raw, smoked or pickled, rather than cooked. However, given a light batter and cooked very quickly in small pieces, it became something of joy. And he loved it. Now he eats fish of all shapes, sizes, flavours.