THE dad, a burly man in his early 30s, sat his three children down on the seats across the aisle from me.

He explained to his kids, none of whom looked older than seven, that they had moved down the carriage to get away from the woman who was yelling at them.

The father told his children that, while they had been a little bit loud, the lady was still wrong to turn round and scream at them to be quiet.

And one more thing, he told them: I don’t ever want to catch you using any of those words she shouted at you.

Further down the carriage on the 17.50 from Scarborough on Sunday, a baby wailed. I wondered how long it would be before someone yelled at that infant or its poor harassed parent.

The following day I noticed that the seventh most popular search item on Yahoo, just below “Ashley Cole”, was “child-free village”.

I clicked on the link which took me to a BBC story about Firhall, a village in the Highlands where children are banned.

No child may live in the village, though the report adds that residents’ grandchildren are allowed to visit, within certain limits.

Some of you reading this may think Firhall is some kind of paradise. No kids bawling, no hoodies on street corners, no teenagers playing appalling music at appalling volumes on their appalling mobiles.

But it’s sad reflection of this country, that a village could ban children outright, or that a woman would swear at young kids on a train rather than calmly ask them to be quiet.

A United Nations report three years ago famously concluded that Britain was the worst country in the industrialised world in which to grow up.

On a whole host of issues – from child poverty, to smoking, drinking, teenage pregnancy and educational achievement – Britain is either bottom of the class or sinking swiftly in that direction.

The new Government, to be fair to it, is not ignoring this dire situation. David Cameron has promised to bring in a range of policies to make Britain “the most family-friendly country in Europe”.

Few would quibble with extra health visitors, more flexible parental leave or a ban on vending machines in schools. But even if the Tory / Lib Dem coalition can implement all these cuddly policies, it will leave Britain a long way short of say, Sweden or Holland, when it comes to things like child poverty or teenage pregnancy.

Catching up with these world leaders would need wider cultural, social and economic changes, the kind of things which would take decades.

It would require an end to the paranoia which has stopped children from playing on the street. It would need an end to the assumption that any teenager in a hoodie is about to stab you. It would entail a reversal of the widening inequality which leaves so many young people without prospects.

The Government should be commended for wanting Britain to be the most family-friendly country in Europe, but I think it’s an unachievable goal.

It reminds me Labour’s pledge in 1997 to pursue “an ethical foreign policy.” The moment the phrase left Jack Straw’s lips, you knew he would live to regret it.

It was too bold an ambition. He should have aimed lower, maybe by promising to sell arms to relatively nice dictators only.

And I think the new Government should do the same. Rather than try to become the most family-friendly country in Europe – which is never going to happen – ministers should set their sights on something more achievable.

But then again the sentence “I pledge to make Britain only the fifth worst country in Europe for children to grow up in” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

So it’s “most family-friendly” instead.

I just wish someone had told that woman on the train on Sunday.