I TEND to agree with those headteachers who argue that we shouldn’t take children out of school during term time unless it’s for a very good reason.

I get the point that heading off on holiday when they should be working gives youngsters the wrong message about the value and importance of education.

I also understand that it isn’t fair on the teacher or the rest of the children in the class when so much time is taken up helping those who have been absent to catch up on what they have missed when they get back.

Of course, there’s also the small matter of the possibility of parents being sent to prison if they don’t ensure their children receive the education they are due.

Faced with constant pleading from the younger boys, desperate to come with me to see their 84-year-old granny in Ireland, that is the argument I found myself resorting to.

But the thought that I might end up behind bars didn’t seem to bother them: “Please can we go? We really want to see granny,” they begged.

I was originally travelling over to Ireland to bring granny back home with me for a few weeks. But she had been feeling a bit poorly and said she wasn’t up to the journey. So I thought I would just go ahead and visit her anyway.

She sounded a bit tired when I spoke to her on the phone a few days before I was due to travel: “Are you not bringing any of the boys, then?” she said wistfully.

It’s so hard, living away from loved ones. I could tell she would really love to see the boys, and they really wanted to see her. I wish we could all be together more.

When it comes to missing school for a few days, this, I decided, is surely a very good reason. When Albert got in from school, he was delighted to be told he was coming with me.

“But it’ll be a surprise. Granny won’t be expecting you at all and she’ll be so delighted when she sees you, it’ll really cheer her up. We won’t tell anyone else you’re coming either,”

I said. “So don’t say a word if anyone rings.”

Children love secrets and surprises.

Albert spent the next two days planning how he could catch everyone unawares.

We were calling to see his brother William, who is at university in Belfast, first. Albert insisted on sitting five rows behind me, hidden behind a copy of the Beano, which he’d cut eye-holes in, on the bus from the airport into the centre.

He let me get off the bus first, where William was waiting to meet us. He got off last. William didn’t suspect a thing when Albert jumped out from behind his comic. “I wasn’t expecting you,” he said, giving him a big hug.

Albert was beside himself with excitement on the way to my home town of Strabane, about a two-and-a-half hour journey by bus from Belfast.

This time, he’d decided he was going to hide in a bin bag in granny’s back yard.

He was in place, completely hidden inside a bin bag in the yard, when I knocked on the door. I talked to granny for about five minutes before I thought I’d better mention the bag in the yard.

“What’s this strange bag out in the yard?” I said. “It looks as if it’s moving.”

Before she could reply, Albert burst out of the bag, arms in the air: “Ta da!” he sang. For an instant, I thought we’d gone too far. But after momentarily looking as if she was about to have a heart attack, granny broke into a wide smile.

There was more to come. Albert burst out from behind a door to surprise great-uncle Jackie. And he hid under a blanket on the floor to catch great-aunt Betty unawares.

My sister Helen, who doesn’t have any children and adores Albert, almost as if he was her own, was next.

She had been begging me to bring him over but was resigned to the fact she wouldn’t see him for a while.

He decided he was going to hide in the big blue plastic recycling wheelie bin, half-full with cardboard and newspaper, by the back door.

When Helen arrived, I pretended I had something to show her next to the bin. Suddenly, the lid popped open and Albert jumped out, just like a Jack-in-the-box. Helen screamed. Albert laughed. They hugged.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever known to come out of a wheelie bin,” said Helen.

As well as reading with his granny and auntie, going to the cinema and playing games of Scrabble, Albert went to see the birthplace of the Titanic, which he is doing a class project on, with his auntie in Belfast.

I don’t like taking him out of school. But, on this occasion, I think it was worth it.