Noisy kids are all right – in small doses

IS there anything more uplifting to the soul than the happy sound of children’s laughter?

Apart, obviously, from the sound of someone else saying, “I’ll get this one”?

Well, as the Chuckle Brothers knew, the truth is that children’s laughter, like everything else, is fine only in moderation.

One youngster giggling away at an ancient joke he’s just heard for the first time will bring a smile to the most careworn face – and makes a nice change from the sighs and raised eyebrows you get when you tell it during the traditional half-hour lull in the conversation at a family funeral.

The sound of two or three children running about laughing and playing brings just the right touch of wistfulness to a sunny summer’s day. As does, admittedly, a single-engined plane flying slowly overhead, and you don’t have to fight with the pilot some hours later to persuade him that it’s time for bed.

It’s only when the numbers start to move into double figures that you risk moving from merriment to madness. I presume that’s why primary teachers all hide in the staff room at playtime.

That’s why teachers all hide in the staff room at playtime

Which brings me to one thing that is no laughing matter at all – the school trip.

I was at a beach recently – not actually on it, more overlooking it from the safety of a beach bar from where I could contemplate the beauty of sun, sea and sky without getting sand in my whites wash.

Being out of touch with school stuff, it hadn’t occurred to me that it was nearing the end of term. Then the school trip arrived.

It must have been more than one because the beach disappeared under a locust-like swarm of excited kids.

They ran into the sea, climbed on each other’s shoulders, tried to impress the opposite sex, all the time laughing, whooping, screeching ... they looked like a swarm of locusts but sounded like a flock of constantly surprised seagulls.

I couldn’t make out any teachers – I assume they were all busy drowning themselves. Or their sorrows.

Of course, now that our schools have broken up, it’s the sound of teachers’ laughter that echoes across the land.

It echoes because it’s hollow.