It can be done: fun for the kids and peace for you

To many parents a family holiday is a contradiction in terms. But, as Penelope Gibbs discovered, hotels here are trying to remedy this. And it's working

OUR holidays used to involve booking a flight, packing a rucksack and going out into the world, where we would meander around the countryside, stop to look at ruined churches and sit in cafes. That was before we had a baby.

Everybody told me that having Daisy around would be hard work, but somehow I still expected to be able to take holiday breaks from it all. The reality of our new life only struck home on the first day of our summer holiday last year, when, having booked a gite with a swimming-pool in France, we discovered that the terrace was 10 feet up and a death-trap for Daisy. A few hours of picking her up every time she crawled anywhere near the edge of the terrace created two sets of frayed nerves and most of our holiday was then spent tracking down DIY shops in the suburbs of Cahors and erecting barricades of wire netting all around the offending terrace.

For our next break we decided it was time to seek real relaxation. That meant not leaving the UK, having meals cooked for us, not having to do any housekeeping nor having to transport the entire contents of Daisy's room to our destination. A favourable write-up in the Egon Ronay Guide, And Children Come Too, a useful digest of recommended hotels, restaurants, cafes and pubs in the UK "where young families are welcome" led us to a small and relatively new niche of British hotels - nearly all in the West of England - which specialise in catering for stressed parents and their offspring.

WOOLEY GRANGE

We booked a five-night, mid-week break at Wooley Grange near Bath, and hoped Daisy would approve. She did. While we dined a deux on seared Loch Fyne scallops with spiced lentils followed by brown bread ice-cream with strawberry salad and strawberry sauce, Daisy slept in our room, monitored by the hotel staff, full of scampi and chips. So good were the children's meals that left-overs were rare. All were served in Wooley Bears Den, a haven for active toddlers with a race-circuit full of Little Tikes cars, a mini house, table football and a library of books and videos. It was difficult to prise children away from these attractions and parents wanting to escape for a walk by themselves could easily do so. The Den is staffed by nannies and has the added benefit of making the hotel's common areas relatively child-free and peaceful places to read or have a drink.

We could happily have spent all five days pottering around the hotel - and this was winter. As it was, we dragged ourselves out to see Bath and also to walk around Bradford-on-Avon. With more time and less laziness we could also have shown Daisy the animals at Longleat and visited the locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal.

At full rate, the Wooley Grange experience does not come cheap, but many families obviously consider it good value - weekends are booked up a couple of months ahead and the hotel was full all August last year.

POLURRIAN HOTEL

I would not recommend Wooley Grange without all the summer facilities to families with slightly older children. They would be better served by hotels like the Polurrian on the South Cornwall coast. A friend of mine, Lucinda, and her boys aged six months and four years, stayed at the Polurrian for a week last September. The peaceful situation of the hotel - and exhaustion from the days' activities - led her boys to sleep so well that she had one of her most relaxing holidays since becoming a mother. "I was lying in bed with such a beautiful view of the sea that I felt as if it was coming into the bedroom," she told me. "And it was great not having to think about shopping, cooking, cleaning or washing."

Nor was entertaining the four-year-old a particular challenge. He made friends on the first day and spent the rest of the holiday playing with them in the playroom, in the indoor swimming-pool and Jacuzzi, and on the hotel's private beach. With both tennis and swimming available, there was very little incentive to leave the hotel, though one day Lucinda did leave the baby with the hotel's resident nanny (pounds 3.50 an hour) to visit the nearby seal sanctuary.

RADFORDS COUNTRY HOTEL and BEDRUTHAN STEPS

Another friend of mine, Amanda, has spent the last two summers staying in family hotels in the West Country. She believes it would be impossible to find hotels on the continent like the Radfords Country Hotel in Dawlish, Devon, or Bedruthan Steps Hotel on the north coast of Cornwall. She, her huband and three children (aged five, three and six months) stayed at Bedruthan Steps for a week last July, sharing one large family room. Despite poor weather everyone was happy, with a beach, outdoor playground, and numerous indoor ones. Though Bedruthan offers parents the opportunity to offload kids at children's clubs, Amanda didn't feel she needed it: "I enjoyed time with the children not having to think about anything domestic". Younger children were not allowed in the restaurant, but the hotel supervised them for two hours every evening with film shows, bedtime stories and hot chocolate. This did inject an up-market Butlins flavour, but, given the generally child-oriented atmosphere, turned out surprisingly fun.

Radfords Country Hotel, a pink thatched cottage in Devon countryside where Amanda and family have also stayed, has fewer facilities but is more personal, having been run by Terry and Janet for thirty years. It has indoor and outdoor playgrounds as well as separate swimming-pools for children and adults The fact that dinner was served between six and seven did not distract from the particularly excellent food. Amanda also liked having the children in a separate but adjoining room, rather than in the same room.

OLD BELL, TREVELGUE and MERTON HOTELS

The excellent-value Old Bell in Malmesbury, Wiltshire - sister hotel to Wooley Grange - is another hotel recommended by friends that provides a nanny-service for the children. And while the childen are enjoying themselves in the play-den, the grown-ups can get busy on one of a number of outdoor activities, ranging from horse-riding, to golf, to gliding. The hotel runs weekend winter-breaks including two nights accommodation, breakfast and dinner, as well as one activity, for about pounds 400 per person. A big consideration is how well the hotel strikes the balance between the needs of children and adults, and the Old Bell did not feel "overrun with kids".

Finally, a couple more hotels included in And Children Come Too are the Trevelgue in Porth, Cornwall which offers five supervised childrens' clubs, and the Merton Hotel in Jersey (this year's Egon Ronay Family Hotel of the Year) which has an Aquadome water leisure centre and a "games zone" for teenagers.

The downside to these kind of hotel holidays is price - a week in August for a family with two children could set you back getting on for pounds 2,000 for accommodation in connecting rooms and board There are obviously plenty of parents who believe relaxation is worth practically any price.

FACT FILE

l Wooley Grange, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1TX, tel: 01225 864705, bed and breakfast for the whole family from 1 April pounds 80-pounds 225 per room.

l Polurrian Hotel, The Lizard, south Cornwall, TR12 7EN, tel: 01326 240421. Half board per adult in room with sea view pounds 55 in spring, pounds 86 in high summer. Free accommodation for children under 14 sharing parents' room.

l Trevelgue Hotel, Porth, Cornwall TR7 3LX, tel: 01637 872864. Half board per adult from pounds 287 in early May to pounds 385 in August. Children pay 15-90% adult rate according to age for separate but adjoining room.

l Merton Hotel, St Saviour, Jersey JE2 7R, tel: 01534 24231.

l Bedruthan Steps Hotel, Mawgan Porth, Cornwall TR8 4BU, tel: 01637 860555. Dinner, bed and breakfast for two adults and two children of three and six sharing a suite pounds 650 in early May, pounds 1,176 in August.

l Radfords Country Hotel, Dawlish, Devon EX7 0QN, tel: 01626 863322. Dinner, bed and breakfast for two adults and two children of four and seven sharing a room pounds 610 per week in early June, pounds 920 per week in August.

l Old Bell Hotel, Abbey Row, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, SN16 0AG, tel: 01666 822344, fax: 01666 825145

l Egon Ronay's Guide 1997, And Children Come Too. pounds 9.99 from bookshops.

`I LIKE FAIRY CASTLES. BUT NOT SCARY TOWERS'

We've heard from the adults but what about the children? Which holidays do they like? This is what a few well-travelled children told us:

Luke (aged 7): "I like America because it's got Disneyland and Universal Studios, where we went on the Jaws and King Kong rides. I don't like Yorkshire because it's too cold."

Esther (aged 6): "I like France because there are lots of stars in the sky. My worst holiday is staying at home."

Ben (aged 3): "I like Turkey because it's like chicken and I shot my water-pistol there and drank Coke."

Lawrence (aged 7): "I like Italy because we had a posh hotel and a swimming-pool and it was hot and expensive. I don't like Antarctica because it's too cold and I might be eaten by a polar bear."

Adele (aged 4): "I like fairy castles but I don't like scary towers."

Olly (aged 4): "I like the Isle of Wight because we went on a boat and a train and sat on the beach there."

Christopher (aged 9, brother of Luke): "I like America because we did loads of fun things there and it was hot."

Ally (aged 4, twin-brother of Olly): "I like America because it's got an indoor swimming-pool and I like Disneyland because there are trains everywhere. "

Ella (aged 3, left): "I like skiing holidays because of the Christmas trees, the hotel and the aeroplane."