I felt sick, says Kirstie Allsopp over grilling at letting son, 15, travel across Europe with friend

Kirstie Allsopp says she felt “sick” after being questioned by social services for allowing her 15-year-old son to go interrailing across Europe, it has been revealed.

A social worker contacted the TV presenter demanding to know what “safeguards” had been put in place when she allowed her youngest child, Oscar, to travel for three weeks on the Continent.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, her local council, reportedly opened a file on that case, that could be left open “in case there was another referral and we needed to come to your house and look into this further”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, she said: “I felt sick, to be honest, I felt absolutely sick.

“I panicked, quite badly in the first kind of hour and called all sorts of friends and luckily, sweetly, a couple of them laughed which actually brought me back down and made me realise that I had to see that this was absurd and it wasn’t something to worry about.

‘There was real, real fear’

“But my initial thought was real, real fear and worry and a sense of shame.”

She continued: “His cohort have all turned 16. Like many kids who are at Reading or Leeds [festivals]… or travelling in Europe, there are some who are a bit younger simply because of their cohort.

“Confidence comes from trust and independence and from doing things by yourself.

“My son is capable. It was his idea, his plan, his savings. He came to me and said, ‘Can I do this?’, and I saw no reason for saying no.

“And when I mentioned that he’d done it, I wanted to be inspiring.”