WHEN one is as fit as I am – a condition courtesy of the Great MD in the Sky and in no way down to my own efforts – the slightest ache and pain is seen as a prelude to the ‘last trump’ as mentioned by St Paul in one of his emails to the Corinthians.

That day the discomfort was intense, caused by a trapped nerve near the base of my spine, the result of involuntary dancing on a patch of ice in early February. My left leg was subjected to constant pain, making walking a real agony.

But being a brave little soldier, duty called and I ventured into Banbury and sat for a while in the Castle Quay centre among other people whose creaking bones and stiff muscles had been a way of life for some time.

As far as ball games are concerned, these – along with hare coursing and motorcycle racing – are prohibited in that shopping mall. But it would have been a super-Scrooge to condemn the small, pre-school child as she gently threw a Disney-patterned ball into the air only to catch it again time without number.

Suddenly her concentration wavered and she dropped the ball. It rolled towards the bench where three of us were sitting.

I was the only one with a walking stick and with a move that would have brought applause from any hockey enthusiast, I niftily stopped the ball from rolling under the seat.

She gathered the ball, looked at the stick, then at me and asked if I had ‘a poorly knee’. To go into great detail seemed pointless unless she was planning a career in medicine, so I confessed to the ‘poorly knee’ diagnosis.

“Will the doctor cut your leg off?” she asked with wide-eyed concern, before reporting that a certain Mr Lucas had been unfortunate in having one leg removed. This meant he could no longer play football.

I said I hoped this would not be my fate.

She paused for a few seconds before delivering a coup de grace that brought a smile to the faces of everyone who heard.

“If the doctor does cut your leg off,” her train of thought adhering to the amputation possibility, “please will you give your shoe to the charity shop to help poorly children?”

How could I refuse?

JACK, the one-time solicitor, on whom Fate poured more than his share of misfortune a quarter of a century ago and whom I have often described as the worst beggar in Oxford because he never begs, was leaning heavily on his crutches.

He was not his usual optimistic self when we met in Christ Church Broad Walk.

“The world’s finances are in chaos; industry and commerce are suffering and thousands are losing their jobs; fools in Northern Ireland are trying to rekindle the Troubles while global warming is threatening to flood everywhere, and militant Islamists are intent on doing their worst. So what is the EU doing about it?” he asked, waving a newspaper under my nose.

“It wants to ban the use of Miss or Mrs and their equivalents across the European membership in the name of countering sexism. Madness.”

Not even the offer of hot chocolate at our favourite café could restore his usual good humour.