I am no longer the proud owner of a Nikon D80 camera. It was my pride and joy for a good eleven months, but now, almost certainly, will have been sold on for a fraction of its worth by the local scrotes from Huyton, the once-nice, little village where I grew up. Along with the other items that they stole when they broke into my mum’s house this weekend. My iPod, cash, clothes, my new hockey stick. You can tell it was probably kids – what possible use might they have for a hockey stick? A trophy? A weapon? If they keep it – they’ll get caught, as this was a very unusual piece of kit.

There was a mini-outrage that such a thing could happen in Warwick Close. I don’t recall a single burglary in thirty years, and that’s saying something for an area that’s been sliding inexorably downhill for the past few years. But times change, and standards have slipped. A new, snider generation, more materialistic and submerged in a drink- and drug-fuelled world of their own, roam the streets of the estates where I grew up. The parents have no control; the offspring have no respect. Robbing from their own – this should not be tolerated. And hopefully it won’t, and those fools will be caught, by fair means or foul. Word is out.

I don’t go home very often, and this has left a very sour taste in my mouth. My mum is shaken that someone could get into her own home so effortlessly, and fears for her own and he granddaughter’s safety, now that she realises just how vulnerable she could be.

“Two Dogs” has gone to the dogs.