HAVING stood in the queue for entry to the senior's film showing at the Odeon, it was surprising that four pensioners should push to the front of that queue just as the doors opened.

HAVING stood in the queue for entry to the senior's film showing at the Odeon, it was surprising that four pensioners should push to the front of that queue just as the doors opened.

This crystalised an impression that has been growing on me for some time; namely, that some older people are becoming more and more selfish, rude and thoughtless. Before you get out of your pram, I stress that it is only some older people who are prone to this. But, I suggest, the phenomenon is becoming more noticeable.

There is an attitude which seems to say that because I have lived longer than you, I have an automatic right to push in, go first, ignore the needs and rights of others. The 'me first' selfishness of young people, so often criticised by society, is no more acceptable when played out by their elders.

Perhaps it just confirms that we are becoming a self-centred, impatient, bloody-minded nation, and that age does not preclude anyone from those characteristics.

SIMON BROWNE

Old Church Road, Weston