Few parents look forward to long days spent entirely on the beach, and though I’m one of those rare sand fans who does, it’s a well-proven truth that my definition of a good FBH — focused on silence, solitude and prone sloth — does not overlap with my children’s. A heaving mass of blistered shrieking humanity, a ghastly miasma of fetid seaweed, vinegar and tropical-fruit Factor 40... for many north of the 18-30 divide it’s like a Speedo-sponsored tribute to the works of Hieronymus Bosch, but all those south of it will never tire of this magical realm.

Yet the big holiday decisions are generally made by whoever wears the armbands, so there’s little point in parents asking themselves why — oh-why-oh-why — they have once again been coerced into a fortnight of granulated picnics and french cricket. The best to hope for is a plea bargain: if we pack the buckets and spades — with a signed declaration that they’ll be used for at least seven hours every day — then you let us choose in which country we unpack them.

The word “windbreak” suggests the British seaside isn’t really cut out for an FBH. And then there’s the eye-opening price/quality ratio of accommodation, the ankle-cracking shingle and unlovely spectacle that is the domestic sunbather. A comparative dearth of the wasps and jellyfish that blight so many continental beaches is offset by the brazen ruthlessness of British seagulls: at Tenby, I saw two whole roast chickens borne away from a party of terrified picnickers.

Our resorts also offer little in the way of child-pleasing off-sand diversions, partly due to their hearty make-your-own-fun ethos and partly to the elements — I won’t be revisiting the Quaywest open-air water park until the ozone hole spreads to Torbay. If you can stand a British outdoor pool for more than five minutes without shivering, it’ll be because it’s full of children, and the toilet block is just that bit too far away.

Yet despite all this, I’m happy to award Britain’s beaches a place on the European FBH podium. Of all things, it’s largely down to food: whatever case our continental cousins make for the croque monsieur or panino tricolori, there simply is no finer on-beach family dining experience than a shared bag of fish and chips soused with vinegar.

The British case is helped by the fact that the weather — good or bad — doesn’t impinge upon the pre-teenage beach world. Your children won’t notice when the sleet sets in, so there’s nothing to stop you snoozing after that last mouthful of batter. Nothing except any sense of responsibility, that is, though on a UK FBH you’re unlikely to have your nap disturbed by a lifeguard bearing bad news: mainly due to the discouraging sea temperature, but also because the typical British tide recedes faster than a child runs. (So be on your mettle when it turns: in Padstow last summer, my kids rescued our belongings — and those of our absent beach neighbours — from an ever-encroaching sea.)

IT’S ALSO worth remembering the British are rare among European parents in understanding why children go to the beach: noisy, reckless high jinks, conducted without respect for those carefully demarcated towel-and-windbreak family enclosures. Whoever they outrage or injure, whatever they despoil, your children are unlikely to be returned to you by some furious, sand-faced father leading them by the ear. So lie back and relax: the worst your lot can do on a British FBH will fall some way short of even the average level of behaviour on display.

Take them across the Channel and it couldn’t be more different. The French prefer a complete sensory boycott. A British child doesn’t need to say a word to betray his nationality on a French beach — freckles, a fistful of frites and an unstarched beach outfit do the job — but when he does, it’ll be loud enough to incite a baguettes-at-dawn showdown. Particularly on the Côte d’Azur, where the meagre sand is densely packed with po-faced, child-eating poseurs: that bid for aesthetic supremacy is unlikely to be enhanced by a bellow of “Owzat!”, or copping a goal-line clearance in the Ray-Bans.

Things are more bearable on France’s other coast, if only because the beaches are the size of Belgium and the winds sufficiently potent to disperse excess decibels. But the Côte Atlantique still doesn’t cut the FBH moutarde: the water’s no warmer than Weymouth, most beaches harbour a thriving tar colony, and when your last sudoku anthology blows away, there’s little jet-set nudity to fill the parental-entertainment gap.

More sheltered — and far more relaxed — are the north-facing beaches of Spain’s Basque coast. These are popular with Scandinavians, which along with a backdrop of green hills and top- notch seafood has always made for an unusually wholesome seaside experience. Arise, San Sebastian and your western coastal environs: it’s an FBH silver for you.

Travel across to the Mediterranean costas, though, and the beach-holiday outlook takes a grim turn for the worse. Populated solely by hung-over Brits thwarted by that pre-dawn pool-lounger Anschluss, a costa beach is a home from home. You went abroad to get away from it all, and now here it is, all of it and more, just redder and increasingly irritable. So any FBH on the Brava, Blanca or del Sol is a bipartite affair. My wife and I check our offspring into the on-beach Club del Kidz, then take refuge in the nearest air-conditioned space, be it hotel room, cafe or hire car.

Kids’ clubs offer an escape from FBH hell for parents who remember two golden rules. First, don’t celebrate your new-found freedom with drinking at lunchtime: under a hot sun, self-loathing melancholy is only two San Miguels away. We came here to spend time together as a family, and now look what we’ve done... See how that old woman’s looking at me? She knows I don’t deserve to be a father. The second rule is never, ever tackle this guilt by popping down to see how your children are getting on behind that low, white picket fence. Are they broadening their cultural horizons by mingling with other nationalities, learning ping-pong scores in German and the words of the Marseillaise, as you did in 1972 in Club Med in Corsica? No.

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