I have never met the man or seen any of the television shows that made him one of Scandinavia’s favourite entertainers and would not understand a word of them if I did, but Bosse Parnevik seems like my kind of bloke.

Athletic as a youngster he apparently trained as a gymnastic instructor, but had a flair for comic impersonation that earned him a television break as a teenager which he developed into a career.

His son is also a natural entertainer, but when he showed an interest in pursuing a career in what was then a relatively unknown sport in Sweden it is evident that, at worst, the old man did not get in his way and in all probability offered the necessary encouragement.

Either way Jesper Parnevik carved out a career of his own that has allowed him, in turn, to provide opportunities for his family.

It was, then, with only mock regret that the three time Ryder Cup player and two-time Open Championship runner-up informed us last week that his career is once again being over-shadowed by other members of his family.

Wife Mia has become something of a reality television star as a result of their at home show “Parneviks” having become a hit in Sweden, but more relevantly, it has provided the platform for daughter Peg to demonstrate her musical talent. One of her songs has now been no.1 in Sweden for several months.

One family, so much talent, almost seems unfair and they may well be exceptional, but perhaps they are not. Perhaps their real talent as a family is in generating environments that has allowed successive generations to pursue their passions.

As the parent of one son who shares my own for, in particular, cricket, tennis and football, along with most ball sports; another whose guitar lessons from the age of nine evolved into being able to get a tune out of pretty much anything as he randomly wanders the planet; and their sister whose love of dance and equine sport is set to be pursued on a sports studies course at university, that has always seemed to me to be the thing parents can most usefully do.

However for those who do not get such opportunities at home we have an education system that should be far more focussed on providing them for every youngster.

That is something at which our private schools excel as evidenced by some of my nephews and nieces who have come through that and are doing exceptionally educationally, the oldest having gone directly into second year maths at St Andrews University because his advanced Higher results were so exceptional and his younger sister having followed him, a year ago to study physics.

Both are also gifted musicians, yet an example of what makes them particularly wonderful kids who have, to a fault, always devoted their intelligence and energy to helping other people, is that they have just returned from spending their holidays helping elderly and disabled people make the most of a visit to Lourdes.

It is hard to say how much that is down to parenting and how much to the right educational environment – albeit it is hard to separate the two – but they have unquestionably been given opportunities to discover what makes them tick that are not available in the vast majority of our state schools which have been politically driven towards placing over emphasis on academia.

Important as it may be to drum in the old ‘Three Rs’, teaching to the test is, once those basics are on board, the least important part of education.

Consequently my biggest regret from a dozen years spent on a school board was the ultimate failure of a scheme which sought to show the way forward, a system that introduced into our school curriculum “Period Seven” at the end of each day, offering umpteen options in terms of sport, art and enterprise, intended to allow every pupil the chance to find something they loved doing, then showing them how to pursue it outside school.

Conceived a decade or so ago by a brilliant senior management team of Frank Lennon, Owen Kelly and Martin McGeechan at the invitation of Jack McConnell’s government, it was one of a number of pilot projects set up around the country to look at better ways of educating the whole pupil.

It failed to become a permanent feature of school life partly because so much of that comes down to the people driving it, none of whom are still there sadly, but largely because the necessary funding was not sustained.

That scheme tied in perfectly with the philosophy behind the ‘Curriculum for Excellence’, which is laudable in its aims of joining up the various strands of education but so far seems to have been badly executed.

The same criticism can, of course, be levelled at the “Period Seven” pilot, but we owe it to those not blessed with parents who are as nurturing at Bosse and Jesper Parnevik to use practical intelligence to pursue such ideas, rather than merely theorising academically.