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Three out of the four Perry family are insomniacs - but they’ve found their own way of doing the sleep thing …

Honey Perry and her sons, David and George are insomniacs. Stephen, in the dual role of husband and father is the only one who doesn’t have a problem nodding off. Honey’s always had problems getting to sleep. Stephen explains, "I’d read her bedtime stories - my voice would immediately send her to sleep." Now it’s the World Service which helps Honey to while away a wakeful night. "I do think it’s strange that all my family have to have sound at night to get them back to sleep," says Stephen, who goes for the silent option - a good novel.

David, now twenty-one is unable to drift off without the sound of Alan Bennett (and it must be Alan Bennett reading otherwise the magic doesn’t work) burbling his way through a Winnie-the-Pooh story in his ear. It all started when David was in primary school, worrying about the next day, unable to get to sleep unless the adventures of Pooh murmured seductively in his ear… "It’s like my teddy bear I’ve had since I was a kid - it’s just an audio teddy bear."

For seventeen-year-old George, it’s the fifties radio programme, Journey into Space, which sends him spark out, "It’s very dated which is quite relaxing - these people have no technology - when they turn the radar on it has to warm up. I know exactly what’s going to happen - I can let my mind flow with it." At a rough reckoning, George thinks he’s heard the three series, Operation Lunar, Red Planet and World in Peril ,seventeen tapes in all, about a hundred times.

David, at university now, isn’t cowed at the thought of explaining his audio bedfellow to girlfriends, "I’m not ashamed," he declares stoutly (Pooh-like?) Friends, he says, think he's weird, but tolerate the eccentricity. Stephen is the only one whose pyjamas are headphone-free. He doesn’t feel left-out, just a little worried for the rest of his family’s sanity.

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