So, you’re over 60 and you want to get frisky? Well fair enough, but spare a thought please for the rest of us. I have nothing but admiration for older people, and especially those in their 70s and beyond, but if they insist on getting fresh with each other in public spaces, then frankly they’re inviting trouble.

A few years back I reported on a survey which claimed that half of those entitled to bus passes enjoyed sex sessions which could last up to more than two hours a week. Shocking enough by itself. But then, to add insult to injury, another survey suggested that only one in six of 16 to 24-year-olds could match this level of performance.

Is it any wonder then that so many young people in our society feel increasingly alienated by a greying population whose main preoccupation seems to be sex, sex and more sex.

I only mention this because earlier this week whilst wandering through Jericho, an area renowned for its youthful vitality, I came face to face with two pensioners hell-bent on snogging each other to death.

Now for the young woman I was escorting, it all proved too much; she had to kneel down, head bent, and suck in great lungfuls of air for fear of passing out on the pavement. And even I was momentarily taken aback by the sight of two tongues that had invariably survived the Second World War and maybe even the First.

What truly shocked me however occurred but a few, brief seconds later. The man, who was at least old enough to get a telegram from Her Majesty, caught me staring, winked (almost conspiratorially), and then slapped the palm of his hand on the rear of the woman he was kissing.

It was blatant; it was revolting and it could so easily have ended in court. And here’s the real rub – she in turn, giggled and stuck her tongue out at me.

“You’re not impressing anyone,” I shouted as the couple wandered off, laughing. “It’s not big to have sex in public you know. Gerbils do it, sure, but they normally only live to four or five years old. You’ve got at least another three months between the two of you…” And so on.

Anyway, I thought about reporting it to the police, but in the end decided to forget about it. Except I can’t.

Nowhere, not once in any sex manual I’ve ever read, does it feature older people getting involved in bedroom acrobatics. It doesn’t even show pictures of them kissing. And why? Because it reminds ordinary, innocent, decent people that their lovely old parents, who still enquire if they’re eating properly, must once have had sex in order to ask that question of them.

And no matter how old you yourself become, the thought that your parents ever ‘did it’ in the first place, and, may still be ‘doing it’, is frankly too much.

So if you do happen to be in your sixties and seventies, and still occasionally feel a frisson of desire for your loved one, then indulge your passion, of course, by all means, but please not in the street.

Either keep it for bingo night or the back seat of your mystery coach tour to Weston super Mare.

And show the younger generation some respect.