WASN'T that a disturbing comment on today's society -- by Accrington police chief Inspector Dale Allen, that the town-centre anti-truancy operation the force staged in conjunction with education officials was a 'disaster'?

That, he said, was because, though they copped plenty of kids who should have been in school, many were absent because they had the consent of their parents.

But contrast this abysmal state of affairs with the recollections of an oldster in the same issue of this newspaper in which it was reported -- of truancy being almost unheard of in his school days in the 1930s because any child who was away from school for just a few days back then could expect a knock on the door from an inspector from the education department demanding an explanation from a parent for their absence.

I, too, have personal recollections of such vigilant officials.

What became of them -- and of the automatic threat of prosecution of parents who did not make sure their youngsters went to school?

Moreover, these no-nonsense officials were employed for donkey's years -- in times when this country was far less affluent than it is now.

Cannot we afford to bring them back and start throwing the book at the feckless parents rearing the feckless, bunking-off kids who are thieving and vandalising when they should be in school?

Certainly, the police have better things to do than collar these pests in temporary crackdowns.

What's wanted is the full-time attention of the old-style truancy officers and the couldn't-care-less parents punished by the courts.