WATCHING those scenes in London — young people attacking the police, breaking into buildings and all that deliberate vandalism — I wondered what on earth people throughout the world and those in Libya, in particular, were thinking.

Here we are, helping them and telling them how to control their domestic problems, when it appears we can’t even control our own.

I cannot believe — and I’m hoping it wasn’t an order — that the police stood by and allowed this sort of thing to happen, but it seemed to be the case from what I saw reported on the television.

The police seemed to be watching while hooded hooligans broke windows and sprayed paint and sadly the young yobs showed absolutely no concern that the police were present.

How different to those days when we respected the police and the laws they were there to uphold.

Looking back, things seem to have moved on so fast in the past few decades.

I was in the hairdresser’s the other say and childhood memories were on the agenda, such as dolly tubs, possers, washboards, tin baths and keys hung on a string through the letter boxes.

Then we remembered jugs left out with the money for the milk man, errand boys on bikes, hop scotch, marbles and buck and stick.

Oh, the list was endless and everyone spoke of those days with fond affection, but, let’s face it, would we really want them back?

There’d be no television, no mobile phones, no computers and no modern washing machines.

And I think of mum on wash days with her three tubs, one for darks, one for whites, one for rinsing.

Then there was the rack full of all that ironing.

Stop! I’m tired just thinking about it.