I have always loved maps.

As a child I would open them out and closely study them, their symbols, contour lines and colours.

If we had been for a walk I would look at the Ordnance Survey map afterwards and look at the route, searching for streams, woods and other landmarks along the way.

Similarly, in the car, I loved map reading, guiding whoever was driving along the highways and byways to our destination.

Now it’s so different. Trying to find a shop on an industrial state in a North Yorkshire town the other day, I stopped to consult my map. I had difficulty working out which way round we were facing, and was about to pull over and ask someone when my daughter let out a loud sigh, whipped out her mobile phone and immediately found it. “Why would you ever use a map?” she scoffed.

Obviously I was pleased to reach our destination, but it’s sad to see the art of map reading dying out. When my children were growing up I taught them to read coordinates and find landmarks, such as churches and pubs. But having no need to use maps, they have forgotten it all.

On a recent holiday in the Lake District, I saw people up hills reading ‘maps’ on their phones.

Map reading is included in a list of basic life skills that are dying out, in a study compiled by Ordnance Survey. A great many people - 52 per cent at the last count - use satellite navigation systems, driving from A to B without noticing rivers, church steeples, bridges and other features of the landscape that would help them to navigate were they reading a map.

Although many people find it invaluable, I don’t think I will ever use ‘sat nav’. The only time I have ever been on a journey dictated by one - the voice also annoyed me - we ended up driving along what looked like a dried up river bed strewn with rocks. We drove back along a perfectly decent road that we would not have missed had we used a map.

Of course maps are not infallible. Routes change and you have to keep up-to-date. It isn’t advisable to use ancient maps bought from charity shops, that were probably last used when the Model T Ford was a common sight on our roads. I made that mistake, ending up in a dead end on a wild stretch of moorland.

And you certainly need a passenger who can read maps. It’s a myth that women can’t (the bestselling book ‘Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps’ should be the other way around) I am a far better map reader than my husband - and he knows it.