ONE day, I’m going to count all the take away food shops in Darlington – or anywhere else come to that. Every time I look another few have popped up. Cooking your own meals could soon become as arcane as weaving your own linen.

True, we have lots of cookery programmes on TV, but for all the chefs’ hard work, they’re about as relevant as Downton.

No wonder we’re such an unhealthy, overweight lot.

Starting this September, cookery is meant to be part of the national curriculum. Don’t know how schools are getting on with that so far. How many of them have kitchens and cookers, for a start?

Of course it’s up to parents to teach their children to cook.

Alongside the growth of fast food and ready meals there’s been a mini-boom in cookery courses for children and teenagers.

Fancy spending £700 a week on teaching your teenager to cook? No, me neither.

But if your 18-year-old is off to university this September and can’t cook a simple meal, then, frankly, you’ve failed as a parent. No excuses. You’ve got three months to put it right.

It’s what the kitchen’s for. If you can remember where it is.