Reading my local paper today I was upset to find that the first 3 pages are pretty much devoted to stories featuring pensioners who have been robbed or ripped off by conmen and thieves.

It makes me feel sick to my stomach that there are actually people in the world that have a moral code that allows them to steal from and prey on the elderly.

In one of the stories two thieves posing as water board inspectors conned there way into an elderly couples home and while the couple were distracted an accomplice stole around £4000. Money which, being terminally ill and having only months left to live, the husband of the couple had been saving for his own funeral.

What type of people would do this!? This is anathema to me. These people deserve to be strung up.

On a lighter note when thieves smashed there way into the house of an 88 year-old ex-desert rat who fought at D-Day and El-Alamein and demanded the keys to his car he is reported as saying "over my dead body son" before chasing the 3 would be bastards back out the way they came in. If only he'd had his old bayonet lying around I'm sure he would have stuck the cunts to the wall before calling the police.

Basically what I'm saying here is that we need to look after our elderly and aging relatives and make them aware of the dangers that now exist in a world that has changed alot in 50years. I dont mean to be patronising to any pensioners, plenty of whom like the man mentioned above are more than capable of looking after themselves, but if you have a relative or neighbour that you would consider vulnerable, of any age really, I think we can do alot more, as individuals and as a society to look out for them.