Whilst I am still waiting for my gap year, my son and most of my contemporaries’ children have enjoyed a time of freedom cleaning beaches in Australia and building schools in Ecuador. I enjoyed the odd email and phone call which told me where he was, how he was getting on and that he needed more money.

I was, therefore, surprised, if not horrified, to read today of the mother who got a member of the family to develop a small sized GPS tracking system so that she could ‘see’ where her 19 year old son was at any time on his travels. She wants to be able to call him if she thinks he is heading into a dodgy area and warn him. I think I would rather not know if my son was visiting the red light districts of Bangkok.

The boy says that he is quite happy to wear it if it keeps his mother happy, although tellingly he says, “Not that it’s happened yet, but if I didn’t want mum to know where I was going I can always leave the thing in the car.”

His uncle is now selling the Traakit online and apparently has had interest from women wanting to keep an eye on husbands who they think are having an affair.

I say bring on the collapse of the GPS system that we were warned about last week!