BECKY SHEAVES

Among the parents we have at our nurseries, it is the ones with supportive grandparents on call that seem the most relaxed and happy in their roles

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OH dear. Dr Helen Eisenhauer (aged 43) has been fined £25,000 and barred from practice for five months. Her crime? She blocked out a couple of appointments at the end of her working day, to pick up her children in time from their afterschool club. Unfortunately, in so doing she gave the entirely false impression that she had seen and treated those patients face-to-face. She had, in fact, done no such thing.

Is there a working parent in the country whose heart did not go out to poor Dr Eisenhauer? I certainly sympathised, deeply.

Time keeping is not one of my strengths. And I, too, was a busy mum, working a fair bit, if not full-time, alongside raising my children. I'm ashamed to admit quite how many times I would dash into our local primary school and find my offspring sitting gloomily in the foyer waiting for me, while various exhausted teachers smiled thinly and the caretaker swept the floor. Oh, what a relief it was when once they were old enough to walk home on their own.

I’m now on the receiving end of such behaviour as I run two small daycare nurseries. You could call it karma. Because when parents are late to pick up their children, it is me who gets the agonised phone calls: “The traffic on the A30 is awful - I’m on my way.” So I understand, I really do.