LORRAINE CANDY: I took my two-year-old to a posh restaurant. So why all the dirty looks?



Would you take your two-year-old to a posh restaurant for lunch? A place with crisp white linen tablecloths, where the waiter calls you by the name you booked under and spaghetti bolognese is not on the menu?

We did. But we won't again. Not because it was a waste of money or a troublesome experience. Not because we didn't like the food - quite the contrary.

Good manners: Lorraine's children were so well-behaved even the waiter commented on it

The food was amazing, the service impeccable and it was worth every penny. We treated our four children on the last day of our half-term holiday in Cornwall.

When we booked we told the staff we'd be bringing youngsters. 'We don't serve children after 7pm,' they said, 'out of respect for other diners, but we love to feed them lunch.' My little ones, aged two, seven, nine and 11, were on their best behaviour. Gracie brushed her hair without being asked and my son wore his 'handsome shirt' as he calls it.

We were seated at a table overlooking the sea. As my older offspring quietly studied the menu there was a rare moment of grown-up peace, a further step down the road to their adulthood.

I am of the opinion that if one of my children becomes prime minister one day (don't laugh) or wants to go on MasterChef, they'll need to know the kind of table manners a restaurant like this would expect. I believe it's worth spending on experience (not stuff) and we try to help our children experience a little more than we did ourselves as youngsters.

Intolerance: A couple nearby disapproved of Lorraine bringing her young family to the posh restaurant

Usually we have fish and chips (or pasties) sitting on the wall overlooking the beach, so they knew it was special to eat holiday food while not covered in sand and surrounded by seagulls. However, the reason we won't be doing it again is down to the couple who sat next to us, who were more annoying than the gulls.

The glowering started as soon as we took our seats. I'm sensitive to this kind of intolerance. I've been made to feel like a parental pariah in many eateries. Sometimes the childless and the 'child-free at last' are shockingly impolite.

I remember once having to sit in a winter wind outside a Starbucks to breastfeed my newborn because an elderly American lady inside was so vocal about how 'disgusting' it was seeing a woman feed in public.

I was breastfeeding very discreetly as we waited for the doctor to open for an emergency appointment and this woman's rudeness felt particularly cruel when a little kindness would have softened a harsh day.

Anyway, as we waited for pudding in the four-star Cornish dining room, the woman next to us said very loudly to her husband: 'How ignorant to bring such a young family to a restaurant like this.'

She was speaking just loudly enough for me to hear her critical words but not addressing me specifically. There were two other families in the dining room with children. One was three years old - I know this because as she ran to the loo she said: 'I am three, I can go alone.'

At this point, my husband took Mabel for a walk until the ice cream appeared as she was singing (quietly).

The woman's disapproval spoilt the meal. I didn't want my children to witness the grumbling in case they thought it was an acceptable way to behave in public.

Everyone has the right to a quiet meal when paying for posh food. But my children were well behaved (the waiter commented on it), so I couldn't fathom the disapproval.

On the train to Cornwall, I'd encountered similar criticism. A passenger told her boyfriend loudly on the phone she had had to sit 'with an annoying toddler'.

Some children can be badly behaved, I know, and I am not one of those mums who believes everything my little ones do is adorable, but am I wrong to expect a little kindness?

I didn't want to listen to the woman's lengthy debate about what she was having for tea but I accept some people are louder than others - this doesn't mean they should be banned from trains. Children are little people, we were all little people once ourselves, weren't we? Isn't there room for us to remember that now and again?