WHEN I was 11-years-old, my parents took me on an unforgettable fourweek holiday to the United States – where my uncle had emigrated many years before.

I still have the scrapbooks, with their fading photographs and tattered leaflets about the White House, the Empire State Building, the United Nations and all the rest.

It was also the first time I heard the magic word “Watergate” – helping to inspire a career in journalism which, like everyone else’s, falls some way short of Woodward and Bernstein.

I mention all this because of a House of Commons debate, next Monday, reminding me how difficult it will be to take my young children to Australia, as I hope to.

The debate has been sparked by an e-petition, signed by a whopping 160,000 people, protesting at sky-high prices to take children away during school holidays.

In a classic example of people power in the internet age, a single angry message on Facebook appears to have sparked a growing citizens’ revolt.

A Manchester dad named Paul Cookson posted images showing Center Parcs offering a villa for £699 a week one week + and £999 the next week, once the holidays were underway.

Other mums and dads on Facebook began swapping their own examples of holiday firms hiking prices outrageously and penalising law-abiding families.

Now, I’m all for shaming greedy companies, but I also suspect the proposed solution – a cap on price increases during holiday periods – is a complete non-starter.

I’m pretty sure not even Ed Miliband, despite his war on banks and energy firms, plans to interfere in the free market in holiday charges, although I will check.

No, what we surely need is a return to the common sense shown by my primary school head teacher, Mr Broad, way back in 1981.

When my parents asked if my twin sister and I could miss ten school days, his reply was: “Of course, they’ll learn far more in the US than during two weeks in class.”

Sadly, that enlightened response is no longer an option for today’s heads, not after the arrival of strict new Department for Education guidance last September.

The new rules expressly forbid holidays in term time, removing the long-enjoyed discretion to allow pupils to miss an annual a maximum of ten days.

Heads can only waive this rule in “exceptional circumstances” and definitely not for a holiday. Parents who break the rules are fined at least £60 – and many have been.

Of course, heads can’t allow every holiday – and it’s not easy to distinguish a once-in-alifetime trip, with educational value – but we should trust schools to use their discretion.

I’ll go to my grave believing the lucky 11- year-old boy who visited Washington and Niagara Falls gained an invaluable experience, one that others deserve to have.

The rules should allow that to happen – even if they can’t guarantee all parents a cheap week at Centre Parcs.

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