The spell of good summer weather came to an abrupt end when the trees turned brown overnight and the media announced that it was now autumn. If further proof were needed, a riot of unruly boys from Ian Ramsey School had climbed up a horse chestnut tree on Darlington Road to shake out all the conkers. There were so many of them crawling along the branches that there was a risk that the whole tree would collapse into the path of traffic on the main road.

I couldn’t tackle these teenage vandals myself, so I rang some doorbells of the even numbered houses in the 80s to summon up some support. Unfortunately none of these elderly residents were up to the job of chasing these naughty schoolboys out of Hartburn.