That’s 128 reasons to love my mum, their grandmother, right there. She would line the four of them up, or prop them against something if they were too young to stand, and count to one hundred all the time  eyeballing them to make sure teeth got brushed thoroughly top and bottom, inside and out. Then, when she reached one hundred she would start all over again and make them brush some more. The reason they needed to brush their teeth so thoroughly ? Nanny had a sweetie bag the size of a family suitcase that was never closed to  little hands.

On Radio 5 Live’s Tony Livesey’s programme last night I took part in a discussion about how grandparents are too soft and can make their grandchildren fat and indolent. Lots of callers and texters to the programme complained about grandparents being over indulgent.

 My children worshipped my mum and dad.  They shared a common enemy – me.  I was horrified that my dad allowed my children and their friends  climb trees and swing upside down from pencil thin branches on the walk home from school.  And they loved it when he got them to roll up a week’s supply of cigarettes using his tin of tobbaco and rizla red papers, especially the licking part.  I only found out about that when they wrote about fag making in their school diaries and the teacher showed me…..

My experience of grandparents is that they have a unique combination of patience and kindness that mums with jobs and menstrual cycles could never equal.

Last night I defended them to the end on radio because I believe they are national treasures. What’s your grandparent story?