Family has passed its cell by date

THEY were a family of four. Mother, father, and two adolescent children - a boy and a girl. They were sitting at a table close to where Richard and I were enjoying our own Sunday pub lunch.

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But there was no danger of their conversation cutting across our own; no risk of raucous laughter disturbing the air around them.

They sat in total silence.

Not only were they not talking - not a single, solitary peep from one of them - they weren’t even looking at each other.

But this was no family at war. No brooding, angry silence following a row. The four of them were fully occupied, not with the food before them (they'd finished their main course and were waiting for their plates to be cleared) and not even with a Sunday newspaper and its sundry supplements.