Diary's parents once sent him to school with an un-treated broken wrist, walking two miles through the snow wearing a hefty rucksack, an inappropriately thin coat and a grimace.

So you can imagine that many of us at MJ Towers have been swift to reach for the neologism ‘snowflake' when describing today's generation of "cotton-wool kids" mostly seen hiding on the back seats of warm 4x4s on the school runs of north London – if they go out at all.