FOUR holidaymakers, all anoraks, rucksacks and screaming children, have flopped on to a pair of adjoining benches.

Out come the flasks and cheese sandwiches. A child makes a lunge at a packet of crisps, which immediately explodes on impact, scattering its contents like a kind of edible cluster bomb.

The child responsible bursts into tears, staring at the adults with a reproachful look that is all petulance and impetigo.

One of the male members of the party leaps to his feet in an attempt to rescue what remains of the crisp packet's contents.

Bending down to pick up whatever isn't covered in grass clippings, this hapless samaritan is promptly rammed from behind by a large dog, which is in turn bawled at by another member of the group, presumably the over-amorous hound's owner.

Sadly, the extending lead has not run to its full length, a good two- thirds of which appears to now be threaded through the benches, round a tree trunk and snarled up with any number of ankles.

While all this is going on, a robin has hopped down from a nearby wall and is making off with crisp particles which, to his elfin bird-mind must appear to be manna from Heaven.

No prizes for guessing what's on the menu at Redbreast Towers tonight. Yes, it's prawn cocktail flavour crisp particles, dessicated woodlouse and finely-mashed green caterpillar for mains, all washed down with a beakful of ditchwater.

Do these robins know how to live, or what?

Anyway, praise be that the kids have grown up and don't come on holiday with us anymore. Don't get me wrong - I love them dearly.

But, having witnessed the sight just described during a recent short break near the Devon resort of Salcombe, I rejoice that the screaming, whinging, snot-plastered, nappy-reeking days of family holidays have now been consigned to the great refuse tip called happy memories.

But please, dear reader, do not think me cynical or callous. For the fact is that I've paid my dues in the family holidays department. Let's be quite clear about this.

Yes. Tomorrow belongs to me.

But it seems like only yesterday that I was cursing seaside pub landladies for barring me because I was in possession of children. And I was convinced that the reason was to do with the fact that kids, in general, tend to make poor customers.

Compared to a six-pints-every-lunchtime labourer, one toddler eating a Heinz chicken dinner that lasts for two hours is no contest. Especially as most of the jar's contents invariably end up with the beer stains and fag burns on the lounge carpet.

Of course, it's probably nothing to do with money changing hands. If landlords dislike children, it's because of the noise and mess.

Back in those days of the shackled, penal servitude of my early parenthood, every day of a holiday felt like walking in a quicksand wearing lead-lined diving boots. Hell - is there no one out there who will take pity and serve me a pint?

I'm only a father with children - and that, by the way, is not a notifiable disease.

What a difference a few years makes. Some say time is a great healer, but I would maintain the reverse is true. For time mends nothing, it just leaves open wounds, raw, gaping and waiting for someone to rub in some salt. But I'm a complete hypocrite, of course. Nowadays the reverse applies. Once I hated publicans for barring my children. Now I can't stand to see kids in a pub.

Kids always take over any situation and I want peace and quiet. The mere hint of a whine, whimper or whinge and my teeth are set on edge.

I recoil as the chicken nuggets are ground into the floor and wince as the Coke can flops over and gurgles its contents over the tablecloth. The thing is, you see, my tolerance for mess and muddle has been expended. Finis. Kaput. There's none left. My well of understanding has run dry. Drier than a Farley's rusk.

It all goes to show what an insufferable bigot I have become in my Meldrew years. It's fair to say that I'm becoming mighty choosy in my old age.

Take this for example. Recently, on this West Country progress sans enfants, my wife and I called at a delightful hostelry near Dartmouth.

It had all the right ingredients - battered oak table, real ales, wholesome home-cooking, a couple of the local lunatics blathering on about politics, a landlady who looked like a varnished version of Hattie Jacques - and the whole scene nicely matured in a permanent woodsmoke fug permeating every nook and crannie of the premises. And not a child to be seen for miles.

(This is wonderful therapy. The word for it is catharsis. I know the Phillpott File makes a rule never to use a big word when 10 will do, but in this instance, I must insist. Cathartic, catharsis. Yes, I feel better already.)

The day before our expedition to Dartmouth, we had called at a National Trust property on the hills overlooking Salcombe.

Lots to see and do, from delightful walks to tours round the house itself.

The sun was shining brightly, clouds scudded the sky... and, all the while, a family of six dominated the lawn with screaming, yelling, litter-dropping abandon.

The children appeared to have drunk several gallons of yellow e-numbers and the adults had obviously been drugged for decades.

Rucksacks, carrier bags and assorted anoraks lay on the ground, like so much equipment abandoned by a retreating army.

And watching all this meant it was impossible to concentrate on what really mattered - the ambience of otherwise delightful surroundings.

Even our humble holiday lodgings were not free from the little monsters.

Yes, the cottage was perfection, every mod con... even if the fancy mock gold-plated taps did take an age to fill the bath.

And mine hosts were that pleasing blend of friendliness without too much intrusiveness.

But they had four children, apparently all under the age of eight. And they wanted to play ball from dawn until dusk. Bless 'em.

And such activities meant noise. Lots and lots of it. Screams of joy, howls of anguish. Bawled protests, shrieked congratulations as a goal is scored. Tons of lovely noise. And, from time to time, the ball bounced off the car.

No damages or scratches, mind. But there was obviously a disaster waiting to happen...

It's not that I'm mean, anti-social or becoming increasingly cantankerous. Oh, all right, just a bit. Yes, let's be honest.

It's just that I've done all that, bought the record and the tour T-shirt. Plus the movie and the spin-off telly series. The plain facts of the matter are that this is a road that has been travelled, every rocky, pot-holed step of the way.

The time has come for me to hand the Olympic flame to someone else. For I've done my bit for humanity... thank you very much. Goodnight.