On Monday morning I rang my doctor’s surgery and the receptionist, whom I had known for years, offered me an appointment that evening with my doctor.

I then cycled into town, where I left my bike in the rack by the post office. I had forgotten my combination lock chain, but I knew that I needn’t worry; it would still be there when I came out. It was.

I then went into the library where there was quite a queue of people returning books and recommending in a whisper to each other the ones they had just read.

When I came out I saw a little girl crying on the pavement. She had lost her mother. I took her by the hand and led her to the spot where I had just seen the policeman by the Belisha beacon in the town centre.

He was still there and as I was explaining where I had come across her, the child’s mother ran up and thanked us all profusely for looking after her daughter.

She had just popped into the Electricity Board shop to pay her bill and arrange for an electrician to come and sort out a problem and hadn’t noticed that she had wandered off.

I dropped a shopping list off at our local grocer for him to deliver later that afternoon and started to cycle home.

It was late summer and the council were cutting back the hedges and verges which were encroaching on all the lanes out of town and a couple of co-workers were bagging up the thorny branches and leaves.

If it wasn’t for them, in a very short time the roads would have been lethal.

In the afternoon, I visited a friend in the local hospital who had just had his appendix out.

The nursing staff were very friendly and even had time to make us both a cup of tea, until matron appeared to make her cleanliness inspection and I had to make myself scarce.

I walked to the doctor in the evening and on the way back, I bumped into our local beat policeman who had stopped at his blue police box and we had a chat.

I asked him what was inside – he said ‘Aha! You would be really surprised if you saw! It’s top secret.’ ‘Wake up Colin! Wake up! Were you dreaming about the 1950s again?’

Apparently I was.