We’ve betrayed our children for the love of cars | Patrick Barkham

A break in the Isles of Scilly showed me how children thrive away from traffic. Just a shame that we had to navigate the M5 to get there

I realised it would be an unusual Easter holiday when we were met at the jetty of St Martin's, in the Isles of Scilly, by a 1965 Massey Ferguson tractor. Its tiny trailer transported me, my children and our luggage to our chalet.

Here was a rural idyll of the kind that vanished from mainland Britain in the last century: sparrows chirruping from every bush, roadside stalls with open money boxes selling free-range eggs and everyone saying hello.

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