HE IS 2ft 4in (71cm) long, distinctly pudgy, and speaks no known language. At present, because he is teething, he has an alarming habit of grabbing his bare feet, stuffing them in his mouth, and sucking his toes. His name is Rafe, and he is my seven-month-old son. Having just spent a holiday in France with him, I can vouch for his sterling qualities as a companion on the road. And my wife and I have found, to our surprise and pleasure, that we get distinctly better treatment when he travels with us.

This was not the first time in his short life that Rafe had been abroad: he flew to Monte Carlo in April, and to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in June. My wife, Dee, and I have always led a wandering life, and Rafe is to some extent condemned to share it.

But we compensate by ensuring that we keep to his routine wherever we are. So even when he was hurtling towards Paris on a train at the start of our holiday he slept and had a nappy change and ate his meals at the correct times. As a result, he was immensely jolly, grinning at everyone around him and chewing his disreputable elephant with its rubber feet.

When we arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris it all paid off. There were six of us in our family party, and I was dubious about our chances of getting a couple of taxis quickly to transfer us to the Gare Montparnasse for the train to Bordeaux. Not at all: the man in charge of marshalling the taxi queue spotted me carrying Rafe in his baby pouch and summoned us to the head of the long line.

“But there are six of us,” I told him. “Pas de problème, monsieur,” the man said, and summoned two taxis. No one in the queue said anything; a baby is a higher trump card than even a wheelchair or a pair of crutches.

The high-speed TGV to Bordeaux was less successful. It was full, and the only way we could get everyone into the same compartment was to venture into first class — more expense. Even then we had to sit separately. Dee and the baby took over a little four-person “silent” compartment, occupied by a man who had clearly hoped to read his Le Monde in peace and quiet. “Silent” became a relative term for him. Rafe was at his jolliest: gurgling, smiling, chewing everything within reach, and occasionally filling his nappy with single-minded intensity.

Dee felt she couldn’t change the nappy on the empty seat beside her, for fear of freaking out M. Le Monde altogether; so she set off in search of the advertised place where she could do the job. It was three long, full carriages away, and swaying at high speed through the centre of France with a baby was both alarming and dangerous.

So we were tired and fractious when we arrived. The mood wasn’t helped at the Hertz car rental desk. A woman who clearly loved to say no sat behind the desk, explaining to two elderly Dutch women why their credit cards weren’t acceptable. I made a certain amount of play with the baby as I stood there waiting: unlike the taxi queue, it didn’t work. At last she rented us a car. It turned out to have a slow puncture, and the spare tyre was of a different make from the rest.

But the house we had taken was beautiful. Every other year Dee and I take a house in the French countryside and invite friends to join us. By the time all 12 had assembled, the boiler had broken down and we had to wash in cold water for four days. Rafe likes his bath, but he was as stoical as ever. I was less so. Negotiating with French plumbers is not my thing.

Once the hot water was restored, though, we had a relaxed couple of weeks before heading back to Paris. Dee and I have a small flat there, in the 7th, and this was Rafe’s first visit to his patrimony.

Thirty-two years ago I took my two daughters to Paris, and for one reason or another things were not nearly so easy. Perhaps the fundamental difference was my age: people expect a man of 30 to have children, and to be able to deal with them on his own. With a man of 62 there is a curiosity factor, which breeds interest and sympathy. Perhaps, too, they think I am too broken down to be able to deal with him. There are times when I would agree.

Three decades later, having a baby proved to be an immense advantage. We were walking along the Avenue Montaigne in the pouring rain, when we realised it was time to feed him and change his nappy. So we turned into the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, soaked and refugee-like under the critical gaze of the doorman, and dripped our way across the lobby to the lounge.

A beautiful young woman in a severe uniform took a half-step forward, but her face softened when she saw Rafe. She showed us to a rather prominent table, peeled our wet coats off us, and wheeled his muddy pushchair into position for his feed. The maître d’, grand as the Archbishop of Paris, frowned at the sight of us, but relented when Rafe grinned at him. The atmosphere was improved when I ordered two glasses of rosé Champagne; I suppose it made us seem a little less like Kosovans.

Rafe’s little tub of spinach and fish was heated to the right temperature. Someone brought a tiny silver spoon to feed him with. Waiters cooed around us. The archbishop beamed, even when Rafe’s mouth was covered in greenish slime.

People asked us how old he was, and what his name was, and if that was the same as “Raphael”. He smiled at them all and kicked his fat little legs and gurgled, and as a result they treated us like film stars.

Late that afternoon, I took Rafe out to buy a bottle of wine for dinner. In the past, Dee and I would have gone to a restaurant, but now we have to stay in and watch a film instead. It was still raining. This time he was in his pouch or, as Dee and I call it, his pod. (Carrying him in it is known as pod-casting.)

The rain lashed us as we walked along, so I buttoned my coat around him and left just his little head sticking out below mine. It wasn’t until I saw our reflection in a shop window that I realised how weird we looked: like a two-headed giant. Until then I assumed the people who stared were simply taken with Rafe’s charm.

Our local wine merchant’s is a grand place, and the man who runs it is even grander. It was at that point that I realised I scarcely had any money with me. “What’s the best bottle of bordeaux for 12 euros?” I asked. He wasn’t a bit fazed, either by the question or by the strange two-headed creature it came from. He pulled out an excellent bottle of Haut-Médoc. “I think you will enjoy this,” he said. “And so will the young man.” I used to assume that a baby would make travelling more difficult. Not a bit of it. If I could, I would take him everywhere. As a companion, he is simply unbeatable.



John Simpson’s Days from a Different World (Pan Macmillan, £7.99) will be published on September 18.

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