So I just wanted to know if you can play ‘We’ll Meet Again’.”We looked at each other in mingled scorn and shame. We never played any songs that Peter Christie hadn’t written We played only original material We were very proud of that We wouldn’t know how to play any other songs. “Not only that, but she has promised to sing, if we provide musical backing. Every week our talented songwriter Peter Christie would write a new song for the show, every week we would rehearse it like mad and record it, and every week we would go home and forget the song again for ever.But one week the producer, Michael Ember, said to us that at the end of the year, fast approaching, there would be a special edition of the programme to be called Stop The Year With Robert Robinson, with glittering guests like Jonathan Miller.”And we have managed to persuade Vera Lynn to come along,” he said. So I am going to scroll forward many years until we come to a day in the late 1970s, when I was in the cabaret quartet Instant Sunshine, which had a regular slot on the Saturday Radio 4 programme Stop The Week with Robert Robinson. Trouble was, said Milligan, that the British would too, so not a lot came of these tactics.VE Day itself I cannot remember Nor the day after Nor the day after that.

Spike Milligan relates rather movingly in one of his volumes of reminiscence about the Second World War that whenever news got around in Italy that Gracie Fields was about to appear in concert for the troops, the Germans would fall back out of earshot. I have suddenly realised that if I don’t tell my VE Day story now, I’ll probably never get a chance again, so here goes.
VE, of course, is short for Vera Lynn, the plucky singing lady who guarded our shores against the enemy while Gracie Fields took the offensive against the enemy and drove them back. Jamie and Jools obviously have this skill in spades, and, when it comes to parenting, are excellent role models.Jools could have used her book to explain to her millions of young admirers that being a good mother is not about having a famous source of sperm or a beautiful home, but about taking the job of being a parent seriously Sadly, it’s an opportunity lost
More from Janet Street-Porter. We won’t solve anything in the long term by issuing Asbos and dreaming up silly uniforms for youths to wear when they break the law.

We need to focus on how to help young parents to recognise that they have a huge responsibility to their children beyond providing material things.We need to address the time-bomb of young mums and dads who simply don’t have a clue what to do with their kids – the disruptive schoolchildren who will become the young criminals of tomorrow. The press release claims that “this is the book no aspiring mother will want to be without”, but it is nothing to do with having a baby and everything to do with celebrity culture.If Jools and Jamie really wanted to help young women who are considering having a baby in Britain today, then perhaps he could make another television series in which he sets out the best environment in which to procreate. I don’t mean sea-grass floor covering or linen sheets, but the necessity, whenever possible, of having two full-time committed parents, a stable relationship, and a total commitment to nurturing your offspring morally and spiritually.Not a day passes without more patronising and doomed initiatives aimed at dealing with yob culture. There’s nothing inherently evil about that – just leave the wife and kids out of it.So Jamie has encouraged Jools to pen a book that is a bit of a fun babble about their lives, but is zero use to anyone having a baby. In fact, it could easily have less lucky mums-to-be reaching for the antidepressants out of sheer envy. That comes across in Jools’s book: when she enters hospital to have her baby, her husband is faffing around in Borough Market and roasting chickens.All of which makes me ask: just why does the most famous chef in Britain feel the need to go to a south London farmers’ market (no better than many others all over the country) on a Saturday and submit his two children to photographers and the curious stares of the public? It’s not about being pukka and ordinary, it’s about a giant ego that needs feeding with recognition every day. The School Dinners television series was made by his production company, and more than promoting a worthwhile and timely campaign, it also further enhanced brand Jamie in all its myriad forms.And we saw that Mr Oliver is an extremely ruthless man, who puts his marriage and family under huge pressure, who fits them in after his work, like most men in Britain – the difference being that he allows them to be used for entertainment value.

He has been given god-like status by television executives, education authorities, nutritionists and concerned parents.By sheer strength of personality, he has forced something to the top of the political agenda, where it could not be ignored. At this point you want to scream, “For God’s sake, woman, stand up for yourself! You’ve got plenty of money, and you’re not short of self esteem, you look more gorgeous than 90 per cent of the mothers in Britain, why allow yourself to be exploited in this way? Why not tell hubbie, in the colourful language he favours, to get lost?”Jamie may be rightfully basking in all the accolades from everyone from Tony Blair downwards for single-handedly drawing the nation’s attention to the appalling state of school meals. Jools employs her sister each day from 8.30 until 6pm, which is how she was able to write 500 words of Bridget-Jones style musings a day.And why write a book and fill it with snaps of intimate family moments taken by your husband, if you so value your privacy that you loathe tabloid editors and the paparazzi? Why invite journalists into your new home (the seventh home in five years) for a chat about your literary efforts so they can note that there are absolutely no books whatsoever there, as Jamie doesn’t like reading.The answer is, of course, that Jools’s book was Jamie’s idea. Most young mothers in Britain do not have the luxury of spending the weekend in a second home in the country, or a full-time paid helper.