I believe that children nowadays are far better behaved in terms of actual mischief than the children of my own generation.
My brother is a year and a half older than I, and from the moment we could toddle our first steps we were a living nightmare to our parents.
We lived in a small Welsh mining community when we were four and five years old.
The man next door was a very pleasant chap called Glyn and he owned his own coal haulage company.
One afternoon, when Glyn was in his house hungrily eating his sandwiches, we filled up the petrol tank of his lorry for him – with water.
He was very understanding about it and did not charge our parents for the damage, poor man lost two days works as a result of trying to get his tank pumped out.
Our next stunt was to empty the contents of my grandmothers sideboard in her dining room, which was used as a food store in those days.
Early in the morning when the rest of the house was asleep, we emptied the cupboard of every single item, unscrewed every bottle and jar and emptied it all onto the linoleum in the hallway.
We cracked eggs onto the slimy mess and used the entire length of the hall as a skating rink.
The height of our demonic behavior was celebrated in the form of the Great Car Hijack.
My father drove a black Zephyr back then, his pride and joy.
It was always parked outside our house and we often sat in the front seats waiting for Mum and Dad to go out.
On the day in question we were all going to the coast and my brother and I were waiting impatiently outside.
We climbed into the front of the car to keep warm and were unable to resist playing with the knobs and dials.
I should explain that we lived halfway up a hill, and at the bottom of the hill was a solid wall, a dead end where the local children played ball.
Chalk marks had been made on the wall to define goal areas and scoreboards.
During our exploration of our new spaceship console, we knocked the handbrake off and the car began to roll slowly down the hill.
Almost as soon as we felt the car move, we jumped out in fright, and hid behind the hedge.
The car gathered in speed and by now my father had spotted the car moving past the window and tore out of the house at top speed to rescue us.
As we were hiding behind the hedge and he could not see us, he assumed we were still in the car, which was gaining speed and getting away from him.
He could not catch it and the car smashed into the wall at the bottom of the hill, glass and metal flying in all directions.
He was so relieved to discover us uninjured and hiding behind the hedge, he did not punish us.
In all the time we lived in that house, that was the only half hour stretch anyone remembers the wall without a single child playing there.
Someone was looking after someone.