Dear Mrs Robinson,

First of all, my family and I would like to thank your good self and everyone concerned with your Establishment for a most enjoyable holiday. We are being entirely sincere when we say, in that phrase often over-worked, that “we had the time of our lives”.

If there should be a better private hotel on the Cape South Coast, we will battle to find it next season. (That statement is intended as a joke, ha! ha!, and has nothing to do – I hope – with the rather precipitate manner by which we eventually came to leave “Seatide” , for as you know we had planned to stay until after New Year.)

About that first small and, in my view, unfortunate altercation: Let me state at once that neither my wife nor I was apprised in advance of the fact that our “offspring” had invited friends to make use of their bedroom floor.

Believe me, it is not in our nature to have “squatters” or “big city hooligans”, as I think you described them on our departure, take advantage of anyone’s hospitality. Especially on a gratuitous basis.

This leads me to the hole in the bedroom ceiling, although here I would hesitate to apportion blame to any faction or individual.

But I am sure, with your experience in the catering business, you will agree that youngsters are the same wherever they may hail from (“big city” or otherwise) and if one offers a youngster a good set of bed springs (such as, I would like to add by way of compliment, we encountered almost without exception at “Seatide”) he or she inevitably will be tempted to jump on them.

Boys will be boys and girls, girls.

One suggestion I can offer in this regard is that you consider retreading the swimming pool as a pit for one or more trampolines. That could constitute a further fine amenity at “Seatide” for guests young and old, throughout the year, and particularly now that your pool filter happens to be malfunctioning.

By the way, while on the subject, we have spoken at length to our youngest and he remains adamant that he has absolutely no knowledge of the process whereby his flippers became lodged in the “in” duct.

My son has also expressed doubt that an accident like that should have discoloured the water in the pool to an extent where he was unable to see the bottom through his Jacques Cousteau “Barrier Reef” goggles.

I would tend to believe him since both flippers and goggles were a Christmas present he had hardly used until then. Indeed, he seems to be most distraught about the whole affair.

Another of our offspring has suggested the presence of the flippers in the filter probably was extraneous to its non-working anyway: that the original blockage was the result of the “mock battle” around the pool on Christmas Eve, initiated by the boy from the caravan park – the “large bloody lout” as you referred to him in your parting statements.

On that score, our children deny they invited the youth over. They say they were under the impression he was the son of somebody in your Management, so authoritatively did he direct the encounter between the “Ninja Turtles” and the “Sewer Rats” gangs. And so, when he began throwing mud around the pool area, they naturally thought this to be permissible under the rules of the hotel.

I humbly advise that a large gate, with a suitably high fence between hotel and caravan park, would be the best barrier against this sort of unwanted element.

The other events of our holiday, if I may deal with them in the order in which you mentioned them upon our departure, may be quite easily explained.

Firstly, our second born (please be assured) is unused to strong drink, though we do allow him the odd glass of white wine on festive occasions. After all, the family on his mother’s side is French, in the most responsible and civilised way.

But where he came by that bottle of Irish Mist still is a mystery to us. We can only think the boy from the caravan park must have brought it along with him, although we have no evidence to support that claim.

Our son’s recollection of the whole afternoon is vague, as you may well imagine. However, he has asked me to offer his apologies to you and your husband for the remarks he made in his state of impairment. Of course, he doesn’t remember exactly what he said but, as he points out, in our family “Fatso” and “Old Bag” often are used as terms of endearment.

The fire must be seen as my responsibility entirely. I should have double-checked that my portable soldering iron was switched off before I put it down on the bedside table after using it to repair the electric kettle you so thoughtfully placed in our suite. (Who tried to boil the kettle without water in it I cannot say. Incidentally, is it working now? If not, please mail it along and I’ll have another go.)

On the matter of the “mistaken bathroom”: our youngest, who collects these things, maintains that Mr Robinson over-reacted in the situation. He says the snake he happened to leave in the wrong tub was of a completely harmless water variety.

Also, my wife – who used to be a nursing sister and viewed your husband’s lacerations – says they were not nearly as bad as he made them out to be. It was quite a small window, after all.

Well, Mrs Robinson, I trust this e-mail letter has cleared up any remaining misunderstandings on your part. Assuring you of our continued custom and support in the future, I am etc.

Time Wounds All Heels column

Christmas just a few days off, and a problem re-emerges I thought had gone away forty years ago: What present to give a female child that is not a doll or something else related to dolls? Clothes, cradles, prams, wardrobes, houses?

And, in the modern world, doesn’t cost one or two limbs because it happens to contain a microchip?

Toys have always been easy for boys. There are all manner of things that run or fly, can be hit or kicked, that come with parts they can put together and so improve their mechanical skills. Or blocks for would-be architects or developers.

Or just a penknife can make a highly acceptable gift for a boy. And it is one you may upgrade every year, starting with a basic blade and moving through the whole range of Swiss Army knives with additional gadgets like nail-scissors, toothpicks, screw-drivers, saws and bottle-openers.

For years, in my pre-teen age, I envied Richmal Crompton’s William Brown character because he had a pocket knife that was able to remove stones from horses’ hooves.

As parent to four daughters, I have long deplored the restriction our society places on toys for little girls. It is highly discriminatory and I’m surprised the Women’s Libbers haven’t taken it up before now.

Instead, I notice a lame attempt by toy manufacturers to broaden the range of options by introducing an older Barbie, one with worry lines and cellulose thighs. A fat lot of use that will be, in all senses.

The problem of presents for little girls re-occurs because those four daughters have produced offspring. Of our nine grandchildren, no fewer than seven are female. I fear women are conspiring to take over the world.

My wife and I often tried to wean our daughters away from what was on offer for female children, to introduce them to a broader canvas of Life. Me particularly.

Birthdays and Christmases, we showered them with all manner of boy-type toys: Meccano sets, electric trains, Action Men, Frisbees, model aeroplane kits, fishing rods.

To little avail. Their interest was fleeting, if any; mainly, I imagine, because they didn’t want to appear non-conformist or foolish in the eyes of their peers.

So usually I ended up having to play with the darn things myself. Just to offset the expenditure.

When our eldest daughter took up Girl Guiding, I went out and bought her a scout knife. It wasn’t quite Swiss Army but handsome enough. And, yes, it did have the stone-from-hoof amenity.

But, alas, the Guide phase didn’t last and soon the knife was mislaid.

One gift that was successful for a while with our children was a set of dominoes, inlaid, quasi-ivory. So I was encouraged the other evening to find that one grand-daughter had come across these pieces in some dark recess and was idly shuffling them about on the carpet.

Now I am a domino player of international experience. I learned in a hard school during one summer I spent in Spain. We would go down to this little village on the island of Formentera and engage the locals.

The arrangement was that, if they beat us, we would buy the beer. If we beat them, we would buy the beer. Some Spanish traditions are rather strange for foreigners to understand.

Still, the beer was cheap, the company genial and we soon got to know the finer tactics of the game. It wasn’t too long before we were winning and buying all the time.

So when my grand-daughter produced the dominoes the other evening, and asked me how to play, I passed on some of those tactics. Not too many. No grandfather is a complete idiot.

Nevertheless, I explained how to keep count of the different cards, how important it was to play to one’s strength and when to withhold doubles and when not. That sort of thing.

She won the third game. The fourth, fifth and sixth.

Of course, it was beginner’s luck. But it doesn’t seem to have run out, night after night. Nor has her enthusiasm. My only consolation is that we aren’t playing for beer.

This weekend, I intend finding that scout knife with the hoof thingummy. It would be nice to have it handy – just to give the child a gentle nudge on the wrist as she prepares to put down her final card.