WHEN I was a child I did not know what a takeaway was.

The only meal anyone took away ready-to-eat was fish and chips and we did not refer to them as takeaway. No-one used that term.

It was not until I was in my teens that a ‘takeaway’ opened in the local market town.

Selling Chinese food, it was a novelty to visit and take home hot food in a carrier bag.

Sticklers to a traditional English menu, my parents never went anywhere near it - in fact, other than fish and chip shops, I do not think they have ever visited a takeaway.

My dad laughs about his only concession to foreign food being French bread. Indian, Chinese and Thai food are as alien to my parents’ plates as a dish of Beluga Caviar. They would never eat as many families - including mine - do, sitting around the coffee table in front of the TV, scooping bits of this and that out of foil containers. And it would be unthinkable for them - and many others of their generation - to receive their dinner from a stranger pulling up outside the house on a moped.

Now takeaways are the norm, with people not only going to pick up meals and take them away, but ordering them to be delivered to their home.

According to research by business advisers, over the next four years spending on delivered takeaway food is set to rise from more than £2 billion to £7.6 billion.

Long working hours and the fact that, in many families, both parents work, means that we are doing less cooking. The trend follows a similar one in America, where ordering takeaway food during the working week is commonplace in many cities.

And it does not simply mean there will be a boom for traditional takeaway chains such as pizza shops, curry houses and Chinese restaurants.

Much of the predicted growth will be fuelled by the fact that more high street chains and top restaurants, where previously you could only eat in, have started offering takeaways through specialist delivery services such as UberEats, Deliveroo and now Amazon.

I ate my first takeaway as a student, when kebabs were a major part of my life. We used to travel miles across London to our favourite shop in Archway, which I was amazed, recently, to find is still in business.

I carried on consuming takeaways, about once a week, for the next two decades - I regularly used to stop for Indian meals on the way home from work, the anticipation building as the aroma filled my car. We never ordered a meal to be delivered to the house - for some reason I didn’t feel comfortable with that.

For health reasons I was forced to give up takeaways and now I don’t eat them at all. I miss them and always feel envious when my family tucks into a takeaway feast.

As a nation, we definitely eat far too many takeaways, ignoring warnings about the levels of fat some contain. But they are quick and convenient, and, with today’s busy lives, the habit is hard to break. How many of us, on the way home from work, have been loath to cook, and ended up buying a takeaway? There will be few who have not.

And, for many, Saturday night is takeaway night, something to look forward to.

As a knock-on effect, the rise in people eating this way has led to a fall in the number of table cloths people use, with John Lewis reporting a ten per cent drop over the past year. That’s another thing that always graced the table when I was young - a crisp, cotton table cloth. Table cloths are still used every day at my parents’ home, where, I am pleased to say, a different way of life prevails.

MORE FROM HELEN MEAD