DURING the long summer holidays, sleep-overs and chilling with a film, a pizza and a friend was a regular occurrence in my house.

Such was the scene when I heard my 12-year-old daughter yelling angrily at her three-year-old brother to be quiet in the lounge.

I went to investigate to find little Jameson in tears.

"He's really annoying Mum because he's telling Amy all about the film and ruining it for her," Amber complained.

For about the tenth time in a week Jameson was watching his favourite film- The Phantom of the Opera.

Keen to explain the plot and dressed as the Phantom himself in white mask, gloves and cape, he told them: "There's this monster who lives under the theatre who is ugly and wears a mask.

"He locks the lady in the room and teaches her to sing and when she kisses him he stops being bad and becomes good and lets her go..."

I was stunned at his understanding. But not only can he give this synopsis aged just three but without an ounce of tuition or goading, he can sing all of the music, with virtually all the right words, completely in tune - even adding anger and actions to the relevant Phantom parts!

Now I can remember being three or four. Home videos and DVDs hadn't been invented but we had black and white TV.

And occasionally I would get to watch our neighbour's colour TV.

There was Trumpton, Andy Pandy and (Bill and Ben) The Flower Pot Men.

Bill and Ben were always naughty while the man who worked in the garden had his back turned and they spoke to each other in their unintelligible language - oddle poddle.

The conversation went as far as "flobadob Ickle Weed" (hello Little Weed) and Little Weed would always replay in her high pitched tone "Weeeeeeeeed!"

We also had the equally eloquent Clangers.

These knitted characters, looking like a cross between mice, anteaters and pigs lived on a small hollow planet and ate Blue String Pudding and Green Soup.

They spoke' to each other in a high- pitched whistle and made absolutely no sense at all.

It's a wonder any of us learned how to speak or string a sentence together.

Roll forward from the 1960s and 70s to today and what are our three and four-year-olds watching?

In my house it is Little Einsteins, exploring the music of different classical composers; Lazy Town with its messages on healthy eating and exercise, and then it's CBeebies with their Ecobeebies programmes teaching all about looking after the environment.

There is no doubt the new generation will be way smarter than we ever were.

Whilst Jameson is lapping up culture and learning about saving the world in one room, what are we oldies doing?

Watching Big Brother, EastEnders and Goldenballs...