HELP

When Jed, my youngest son, went to University I packed him off, along with a substantial wedge of cash to pay for his studies, with two practical pieces of advice.

The first was to grow herbs. I backed this with sending him a small garden's worth of growing herbs. Well, to be accurate, a window box full. Unfortunately he neither tended nor used them. Youthful wantonness. I probably would have been no different. But a few herbs added to the humblest of ingredients transform eating. That was my thought.

The second was to go to church. My thinking here was that church is full of charitable old ladies, just waiting to express their charitable instincts by feeding an evidently hungry young man. He need never want for a Sunday lunch again.

It turned out both pieces of advice went unheeded.

Advice does, is my experience.

Which raises the question, what helps?

It's a question with which I have struggled all my professional life, and a lot of my personal life too.

If anyone knows the answer, do advise me.

Not, of course, that I'll listen!