WHAT'S in a name? Quite a lot if it's four in the morning and your wandering boy's not home...

You pace the floor, you call curses down upon his name, then you just want to know he's safe and hug him. You convince yourself you're worrying about nothing. Then you think that if something really has happened, then the quicker you get help the better.

You wonder about calling the police. And there again, maybe that seems just a mite too panicky. So you compromise. And - despite the hour - you think to call his friends.

And that's when you discover the problem. Who are his friends?

Oh, you know them all right. They regularly troop through your house, shambling giants who communicate in grunts and politely leave their enormous trainers by the front door.

You know who they are. They have names like Wilko and Jacko, Big Pete, Little Pete and Bugs. But Directory Enquiries - even super new improved Directory Enquiries - can't do much about Wilko who may or may not live somewhere above Reeth. Or Catterick. Or towards Barney. Or not.

I've had a few of those late night/early morning phone calls. Because my boys get known by their surname and because it's not as common as Wilkinson or Jackson, then anxious parents tend to swoop on it in the directory.

Unfortunately, by the time they get me out of bed, they've usually woken at least three other baffled Amoses in the phonebook before us...

And it's not helped when I blearily answer the phone to someone who's anxiously telling me "This is David's mother..." And I'm thinking - David? Who's David? Is that Wilko, Jacko or somebody totally different? - So not only am I half asleep but I'm clueless too. Not much good to a panicking mother.

One desperate mother of my acquaintance, besides herself with worry at the whereabouts of her missing 15-year-old, finally rang his form tutor, whose phone number she inexplicably knew. He apparently, stood on the end of a phone and patiently de-coded the nicknames and even provided a few pointers as to addresses.

Then there was a ring on the doorbell - her son had been out drinking and come home in a taxi. Unfortunately, like most 15 year olds, he couldn't hold his drink and now an angry taxi driver was demanding £25 to clean up his cab... I think she was pleased to see him.

The missing names are really a problem of early and mid teens. By the time they get to 17 you hardly ever expect them home anyway. They disappear on Friday teatime, dressed to the nines and smelling delicious and come rolling home about Sunday tea time looking and smelling like dead dogs.

Or if they are at home for the night, then half their friends are with them, draped around the house under the spare duvets and clearing you out of bacon and eggs in the morning.

Mobiles make it easier, of course. If they remember them... if they're charged... if they're switched on... if they bother to answer..

My boys are very good at sending text messages when they're planning to stay out. This has a double advantage: a) it stops me panicking; b) a text doesn't give me the chance to cross-examine them... They're not daft.

Anyway. The moral of this story is one day, when your boy is feeling friendly and co-operative, get him to tell you his friends' proper names. Push your luck and get him to tell you their phone numbers too.

At four o'clock one morning, you might be glad you did.