When my loved ones are on the move, I can’t rest until I know they’ve got from A to B safely. How I long for the ignorance of the olden days

I’ll call it compassionate surveillance. It’s what I do when I’m worried about a loved one who is on the move. I’m not sure it’s a good thing. Be they travelling by plane, train or automobile, I will keep tabs on them. I can’t help myself. If my daughters – who are highly competent grownups – make a long car journey, by means of some smartphone hocus-pocus I’ll know where they are. I should point out that this is done with consent: they know that I know where they are. In my mum’s case, this is less true, if only because she has long given up trying to make head or tail of location sharing and other such sorcery.

I cross my heart and hope to die when I swear to you that I only do this when they are in transit. Honestly, I never look up where they are on a night out or whatever. That would be weird – or weirder, anyway. But when they get in a car, I get the fear. The catastrophising begins. It’s a big world and their car is small. A million other cars, buses and lorries share the roads on which they are motoring. In this, as in all things, overthinking is calamitous. The more you think about what could go wrong, the more your imagination obliges with a steady stream of ghastly possibilities.