Growing Pains - my parenting column for the Cambridge News in 2014/15 - was a joy to write, and earned me a national award nomination for columnist of the year. They’ve all disappeared from the web, sadly, so here’s one from January 2015 that went down particularly well…

Come on then, how many times have you answered the ‘How was your Christmas?’ question so far? I think I’m up to about 56 - and I never know quite what to say. For me, it’s a bit like ‘How are you?’ Do you reply ‘Fine, thanks’, even though your throat’s on fire and you have a boil in a peculiar place, or do you tell the truth?

You see my Christmases are never normal. In fact they’re quite a hoo-ha. Let me explain…

My 13-year-old, James, is in his final year as a chorister in the Choir of King’s College (yes, that one: top hats, telly, tours of the world), so a large chunk of my festive season is spent either in concert halls or in King’s College Chapel, trying not to blub as he sings his heavenly songs.

It always feels strange not having James at home much in the lead-up to Christmas – he’s busy with recordings and rehearsals - but the weirdest part is his absence on Christmas Eve. After the famous Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (yes, that one: red cassocks, Once in Royal, a global audience of millions), the boys stay the night at school ready for a service the following morning. In fact I don’t get him to myself until about 12.45 on Christmas Day, after the last verse of Hark the Herald has finally wafted away.

So for us, Christmas really begins at about 2pm - at which point I open the prosecco and can never remember much else, other than watching him on telly and trying not to blub all over again.

It’s all James’s fault. When he was little, he was forever singing. Goodness knows what soundtrack was playing in his tiny head, but he clearly had a voice and he wanted us to hear it.

You can’t live in Cambridge and not know about King’s College Choir, so I wondered if my little songbird might fancy having a go at becoming a chorister. He’d get the audience he clearly craved, and I’d get to brag about it. Everyone’s a winner.

Entry is by audition, but director of music Stephen Cleobury sometimes offers to hear a boy sing first, to see if it’s worth them going through the audition process. He invited James to come along, armed with a song he liked singing – perhaps a hymn?

Now we’re not a religious family and, aged 7, James didn’t actually know any hymns. Instead he decided he should definitely, definitely do Take That’s Greatest Day. So I downloaded the sheet music, and tried to stifle my sniggers as I stood outside Mr C’s room, listening to the venerable don pounding out Gary Barlow’s frantic pop chords as James sang lustily along.

The upshot was that yes, he should audition - and so he did. Thankfully we’d managed to teach him All Things Bright and Beautiful by then.

I’ll never forget hearing that he’d been awarded a choristership: the headmaster of King’s College School rang me with the news when I was in the lift in Primark. And my reaction? A combination of wide-eyed joy and buttock-clenching terror – because my little boy would have to become a boarder.

Boarding is mandatory for all choristers, as they have to be up with the lark for music practice. For the newbies it begins in Year 4, so James was only 8. But although I was dreading it, boarding has actually changed our relationship in a really positive way. I still see him several times a week, I never have to nag him about homework or practising his violin, and most importantly, James loves it: he gets the equivalent of an endless sleepover with his mates. There’s also something adorably cosy about the Boarding House at King’s, with its big-bosomed matrons, an enormous dog called Noggin and as much hot chocolate as they can swallow.

Still, nothing prepares you for saying goodbye for the first time. But then nothing prepares you for sitting in the cavernous beauty of the chapel, hearing the glorious swell of music and realising that your son's tiny mouth is contributing to those soaring chords. Cue those tears.

The choristers sing in six services every week and, when James has a solo, I’m all sweaty pits and palms - I honestly think I'd be less nervous if I was singing the bloody thing myself - but it's always fine, always perfect. In fact I’m so proud of him I sometimes think I’m going to vomit. I sincerely hope you’re not feeling the same reading this.

So no, we haven’t had a normal Christmas. In fact James hasn’t had a normal childhood. He's toured Europe, Australia, the USA, the Far East, and sung everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to 10 Downing Street. He can sight-read any music you put in front of him. He can stand in front of thousands at the Royal Albert Hall and not bat an eyelid. He can chat with dignitaries, pretend dozens of BBC TV cameras aren't on him, amuse himself on 12-hour flights. Oh, and sing in Latin, French, German and Italian – I’m not sure that’s a useful life tool, but it might woo the girls in a few years’ time.

At first I worried that James might become unbearably cocky (or worse, unbearably poncey), but he hasn’t so far and there are only two terms to go. And although he looks angelic when he’s singing, back at home he’s just like any other teenager: refusing to get dressed, guffing copiously and slaughtering aliens on his PlayStation. In fact as I type, he’s busy with an apocalyptic massacre: I’ve just asked him what being a chorister has given him, and he’s immediately shouted back ‘Independence. Music. And I can make a bed’. Well quite.

So next time someone says ‘How was your Christmas?’ I’ll say something like: ‘Busy, what with the concerts, chapel services, the to-ing and fro-ing, the tears.’ I’ll say it with pride, though, because it looks like Christmas 2015 will be utterly normal. And I know for a fact that James – and I - will miss the hoo-ha like mad.

(c) Cambridge News