I’ve been done over by a teenage gang

Walking along Camden High Street late last night I was pleasantly surprised to see pair after pair of bobbies on the beat.

Scattered almost all the way from Mornington Crescent to Chalk Farm, they wore fluorescent jackets rather than conical helmets but still were a good enough depiction of my childhood notion of the police: protectors, helpers, rule-enforcers of the street. I must remember to thank Boris because I'd been beginning to suspect otherwise. It would be just as easy to believe that Camden is run by 15-year-olds.

Suddenly, teenagers appear to be everywhere: drinking outside the chip shop; offering me drugs on the bridge; loitering by the station. Not that there's anything wrong with teens in themselves but lately they seem to litter the streets like, well, litter.

Not long ago I would have stretched the analogy to profess: ah, but these are the very same children who have been thrown away by society. No longer. Personal encounters have a way of hardening the mindset.

Recently, I was set upon by a teenage gang. OK, not set upon exactly, but jeered at and covered in their beer and alcopops. I'd popped into Sainsbury's and was on my way home when more than a dozen 15-or-so-year-olds emerged, blocking the pavement. I had no option but to pass through their hooded midst.

As the first liquid hit my new jumper, my instinctive reaction was to spin around and demand, in what must be described as terminology somewhat less than "street", "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

No intelligible words but a further wave of drink-throwing and laughter was their clear answer. The loudest laughter, incidentally, came from the Pollard-esque girls, of whom there were four or five.

It has since been pointed out to me that I'm lucky I met with beverages and not blades. But what struck me most was that despite being barely seven in the evening, not long past rush hour, nobody else on the street said a thing. There were no have-a-go heroes, and certainly no sirens blazed.

I arrived home wet, furious, and wondering who are these infant street kings who have made us cower? One silver lining is that this particular gang was a veritable advert for Benetton. But whoever they are, I for one am ready for their ousting.

It therefore gladdens me to see the gradual return of the bobbies although, while I'm doffing my notional cap, a suggestion, too: perhaps the night shift could start a few hours earlier.