Nostalgia can be a load of old guff

5:57pm Friday 25th January 2008

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I MIGHT be an old fuddy-duddy, but sometimes even I get sick of the tired cliches about the good old days, and how things were nicer in the olden times.

You can hear them all now: "It used to be safe to leave your back door open when I were a lad."

Or: "We were all rough diamonds but we had respect for our elders."

Much of this is risible nonsense and has little basis in reality.

I've always maintained that the current generation of youngsters is selfish, greedy and dim. They have grown up surrounded by luxuries, and most Bucks children think deprivation means going without a new Playstation.

But that doesn't mean society is any more violent or nastier these days.

I'm getting on in years, but I don't remember ever leaving my door open to anyone when I was young. Burglars still existed. The only difference back then probably was that the courts actually saw them as criminals, rather than giving them community service and locking up motorists instead.

Old people still got abused and attacked, and people still swore and were rude. And don't give me any of that guff about the gangsters of yesteryear, such as the Krays, being good boys because they loved their mum and only picked on other criminals to attack.

That's why I am bored out of my mind by the fuss surrounding Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's alleged admission she feels it is unsafe to walk the streets at night on her own.

So what? It's always been dangerous for women - and indeed most men - to walk alone anywhere at night. Unless you lock up every crim in the world and put bobbies on every corner that's never going to change. There's always going to be evil scoundrels out to get you, from Hackney to Lambeth to Gerrards Cross.

That's life, folks. Let's all grow up and stop making a fuss about nothing.