Last week saw me left in sole charge of truculent teenager, whose day trip to London with her dad was jeopardised by sliding door incident at Haywards Heath.

Thameslink train on which Kate, dad, and I had been sitting was delayed at above station and dad decided to change to another train.

I, however, caused separation between parent and child by drawing attention to fact the latter had left her Perspex fish-covered personal organiser on the seat. She returned to get it as doors closed, leaving anxious dad on platform.

Kate, who for the past 20 minutes had been desperately trying to display how hard, heartless and cool she was, was suddenly biting back tears and turned to me in desperation.

"Oh my God. What am I going to do? I'm supposed to be spending the day with dad and I don't know my way around London and I haven't got any money. What am I going to do?"

Sympathy, which had previously been flowing entirely the way of her father, who appeared to bearing up well in the face of undisguised adolescent disgust, now began diverting itself in direction of Kate.

Beneath the chipped nail varnish and amateurishly-applied eye shadow she looked increasingly vulnerable.

"Has your dad got a mobile phone?"

"God, no," she replied, venomous spirit returning. "He's far too old-fashioned and sad to have anything useful."

"Well, do you know where he works?"

"No. He doesn't live with us any more and he never tells us anything," she triumphed, delighted that she'd put an end to my line of inquiry.

"Well, I guess you'd better come to my office and we'll phone your mum and see if she's heard from him or knows how to contact him".

"She won't be at home", gloated Kate. "But lesbian Linda will be there. Dad drove mum into becoming a lesbian because he's so useless, and now we have to live with lesbian Linda. It's a nightmare."

Decided against going down the explanatory "it's not really possible to drive people to become lesbians and your mother's decision probably had nothing to do with your father" avenue. Instead, tried to impress by telling her I worked on a woman's magazine where she could spend a few hours while we tried to sort something out.

"I quite like that magazine," she admitted. "But mum and Linda only read lesbian magazines and they don't like me buying the ones that I like."

"Well, you can have a look at all the back issues, while we try to track down your dad," I suggested. Kate had a better idea.

"Couldn't I just spend the day with you. We could tell dad we tried to get hold of him but we couldn't find out where he worked and then I could just go home this evening."

Fortunately, saved by guard entering carriage and demanding to know if there was anyone here called Kate. Kate dared me to give her away, but he obviously had description. "You must be Kate. Your dad just called. You're to change at East Croydon and wait for him by the Sock Shop at Victoria."

Then he turned to me. "Could you make sure she does this? Her dad seems to think she might make off on her own." With that he departed. So, I was still in charge...

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.