WHAT do you think was the column that caused the most outrage ever in my time here working in newspapers in Bucks?

No, it wasn’t anything to do with the stadium, HS2 or the hospital.

Instead, it was an attack on elderly people’s shopping habits.

It was written many years ago by a colleague in the Straight Talking column of the Bucks Free Press Midweek and it caused fury.

What he essentially said was that it was wrong for senior citizens to go shopping on weekends because they got in the way of working people such as him. He’d be driving along in a hurry and be held up by a pensioner motoring along at an absurdly slow speed.

His point was that the elderly had all week to do their shopping, and should leave Saturdays clear for the rest of the population who didn’t have that luxury.

Yes, people went crazy, and I recall he was called to account for his words by being summoned to a meeting of Pensioners’ Voice.

This all came back to me recently when I was standing in a bank in Wycombe on a Saturday with my son, waiting in a smallish queue. We were in a hurry.

However, a pensioner was at the counter methodically asking the cashier a myriad of complex questions, all very valid but extremely time consuming.

The people in the queue began fidgeting and then quietly moaning. And I was getting anxious because this was going on forever.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the pensioner moved on.

As soon as the OAP was out of earshot, a member of the queue groaned: “Why do they have to do this on weekends, when they have all week?”

And it’s a fair point, but it’s wrong and it touches on a deeper issue.

I’m generalising, but I reckon pensioners are a much-maligned group in many ways.

Yes, they may get free bus travel, free TV licences and various other ‘perks’.

But we Brits are often a bit embarrassed by them. Other cultures revere their elders, but in this country they are seen by some as an annoyance because they ask too many questions, chat about the weather and tell feeble jokes.

But may I dare to venture that this isn’t down to senility; it’s due to manners from a better, more decent era where people tried to engage with one another. Nowadays, we’re all too busy engaging with our mobile phones to have proper social interaction.

Some of the working population also doesn’t believe old folk have the right to run cars because they drive more slowly and their reflexes may not be as nimble. But, while I agree that there should be check-ups for drivers past a certain age, most elderly motorists have unblemished records dating back decades. They have no speeding points, no accidents on their record and they take pride in being courteous on the road.

As to shopping on Saturdays, why on earth shouldn’t they do their banking and business on any day they like? How did the people tut tutting in the bank queue know this pensioner didn’t volunteer somewhere during the week, or wasn’t a carer for an elderly spouse and could only get cover on a Saturday?

Of course, little of this discrimination is to their faces. It’s all sniggers and bitches behind the back of the elderly, but it’s uncomfortably rife in society and it’s about time we all behaved a bit better.

I was guilty of impatience in that bank on that day, especially after I finally finished my transaction and went to ask a question at customer services. That same pensioner was standing there asking the same questions, holding up this new queue and showing no sign of letting up.

I gave up and left the building.

But next time, you or I see an elderly person in this scenario, let us please give them the respect they surely deserve by waiting patiently and serenely for them to finish.

It’s up to the banks and shops to put on more counters, and it’s up to us to ensure we’re not in that ridiculous hurry that makes us miserable, impatient and angry at the world.

If ever you have been guilty of bitching about an ‘old fogie’, please stop now.

Because in a few years time, it could be you who is the target for the ageist abuse.