WENT out with my School of Education uni pals this week for a meal. Teachers who cannot WAIT to retire and they’ve been die-hard professionals who loved their job for many years.

And why the change? Because who wants to go into schools to teach and be told to ‘eff off’ by thirteen-year-olds.

On the way home, it set me off thinking about my own school days at the High School and how one of us had to wait outside the door to open it for when our teacher arrived, then we all stood to greet her (or him) and then sat when they gave us permission.

I remember shaking whenever it was my turn to be on door duty and I was waiting for the deputy head Mrs Stewart, not because she was a horror but because she had a presence and woe betide anyone who crossed her.

How times have changed. And, my friends reported, it seems to be boys coming through the system who are really developing a loathing of women.

Mothers, if you are reading this, you need to teach your sons that it is not okay to hate girls, hate women because there is a rising trend of it. What’s causing it? Lord knows but the wave needs to stop.Where has the respect gone for teachers, for authority, for women who – sorry – are physically a weaker sex.

Men walking home at night are not likely to be worried about getting raped and murdered by a woman as the reverse is true and no amount of bleating that the sexes are entirely equal stands up because of it.

Yep – get a man and a woman doing the same job, then that is a case for equality, but so far as brute strength and aggression goes – it’s a no contest.

Then again, a kid who has told a teacher to eff off these days would probably be sent for therapy rather than be disciplined.

This softly softly approach over the past years has worked wonders hasn’t it?

Talking of teachers, if any of them are reading this, an early warning please to tell your pupils not to rip up their books on the last day of school in relief and throw the pages over the streets like giant confetti for local residents to clear up. It’s not on and it happens every year. Please.

Yet another invitation has reached me to do a talk for a group ‘in return for a donation to a charity of my choice’.

So basically they value me enough to want my services, but not enough to actually pay me for them.

But wait – the money IS there… they just want to pay someone else. WTAF. Let me just try that one with an electrician. ‘Hiya, can you sort out the outside light and I’ll send a cheque to Barnsley Parrot Rescue’. What is it with some professions (like authors – and dare I say it ‘female’ authors) where they think we don’t have bills?

If they wanted a talk from Dragons Den Peter Jones and he turned up in his Rolls Royce, would they think: ‘Well, he’s got enough money, we’ll pay his speaker’s fee to The Sunset home for Retired Whippets’.

For the record, I have no Rolls, no Lambo, but I do have a whole selection of gas/water/rates/mortgage bills to stump up for. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and grumpier, but any invitation that comes in with a chirpy ‘We will pay you in sandwiches/’lashings of tea’ (oh yes, I’ve had that one as well)/donate your fee to charity’ goes straight into junk.

I’ll leave them to work out why there has been no reply to their very generous offer.