My first taste of cheese was Dairylea, the kids’ favourite spread, which I would have piled on white toast with a big bowl of tomato soup. It was all the better if I was a bit ill with a cold, or just in from school on a cold day. When I left home and became properly interested in food, I was exposed to the joy of crumbly British cheddar – which is why I am dismayed by today’s news that cheddar is no longer such a joy with the British public.

I found cheddar so salty and sharp it would make me wince, and I learned to eat it with a cold, sweet slice of apple or celery to balance out the flavours, washing it down with a smooth glass of red. Since then I have sampled cheese in just about every country famous for it. In France I caused a Eurostar carriage to empty when carrying a whole vacherin home. In Italy I have packed wheels of mature parmesan into my suitcase, only to throw half the stuff out after leaving it to develop frostbite at the back of the fridge.

Cheeses, it seems, are like holiday romances – they do not travel well. Although I would never buy feta at home, it always tastes so good on a taverna terrace under the Greek sun, crumbled over local tomatoes and smelling of fresh oregano.

But there is nothing like the best of British when it comes to cheese, so I am saddened by the news that sales of cheddar have fallen in favour of its continental cousins. There are now more than 900 types of cheeses made in the UK, which beats even France. And yet, according to the British Cheese Board, in Greece, Italy, France and Germany twice as much cheese is consumed as in the UK. This is mad when we have such a wonderful range of the stuff, from blue and soft to hard and yellow, from sharp to mild, from young and mature.

In recent years I was delighted to be judge at the World Cheese Awards. There I mingled with the likes of the restaurant reviewer Charles Campion, the Blur musician Alex James who now makes his own award-winning cheese, and fellow cheese obsessive Amy Lamé. While the other judges would almost invariably choose a French, Italian or, on one memorable occasion, American cheese for the top spot, I would find myself favouring the Brits. I found them fresher, tastier and more complex.

As often as I am able and can afford it, I make the effort to visit a proper cheese shop that sells a broad range of British cheese, from soft, pungent goats to stinking bishop - true to its name, and washed in bacteria-producing perry as it matures, is a thing of sheer beauty when eaten with the thinnest cracker.

During my childhood my mother’s homemade Christmas cake was served with a hefty slice of wensleydale, a gorgeous cheese that is creamy and crumbly at the same time. When I tell my friends in the south of England to try this delicious combination they look at me as though I have lost the plot. But this is one of the real wonders of cheeses from our shores – they can be eaten as starter, main, dessert and everything inbetween.

And I can’t not mention the virtues of the Scottish cream cheese caboc, rolled in oatmeal and with a taste like rich, pungent butter. I eat it with oatcakes for lunch, it being too rich as an after-dinner scoff. Thought to be over 500 years old, Caboc, according to legend, was first made by a Scottish chieftain’s daughter, who learned the recipe in Ireland after fleeing her homeland to avoid marriage – the perfect cheese for a feminist.

Let us regain some pride in one of our national treasures, and favour our British cheeses over their foreign counterparts. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised at how quickly you pass over the parmesan in favour of pantysgawn.