SCREAMS rang through the Westgate car park, the soulless concrete monster echoing the blood-curdling cries.

My blood ran cold; I had to investigate and, if necessary, intervene. The knight in armour spirit lives on. Tracing the source was easy. A sinister black four-by-four obscured the screamer, but the top halves of a man and woman were visible through the windows. They were struggling with their ‘victim’.

I approached with caution. Was this a kidnapping? Would fisticuffs be necessary? Hopefully not because the chap was large and the woman looked capable of packing a punch.

But it was the screamer who stopped me in my tracks. She was a seven-year-old girl, red haired, red faced, but tearless. A n audience encouraged greater volume.

“This is because we removed the ‘Princess on board’ sun shield at the weekend. We thought she was getting too old for it,” said the man, father of this human siren. (He insisted on showing a recently taken family snapshot to prove it was no abduction.) “She hadn’t noticed until we came into Oxford today. I think I’ll have to put it back.”

“The hell you will!” said mother, bundling the child back into the vehicle. “It’s your fault she thinks she’s a damned princess!”

I left the family, the child’s screams forced to compete with a mum who was replacing fraying patience with direct action.

A SECOND red face belonged to a lad of about 15, hoodied and iPodded as he emerged from the florists in the Covered Market.

He had been paleness itself until he saw me glance at the single, gift-wrapped red rose in his hand. I gave a wink of approval, adding the exclamation ‘Good lad!’, delighted that romance was blossoming in one so young.

He mumbled that it was not his idea, waving the bloom in the direction of a smiling young woman – his mother – standing a few feet away.

“The first boy to take me out bought me a rose for our first date,” she said, the memory still fresh. “I’m sure A**** will like it.” The mumbling became incoherent as he shuffled off. I wonder if A**** received that rose.

FOR the two men to use heavy rain as reason not to buy a Remembrance Day poppy held no water with the seller.

“It was wet on the front – I was there,” said the seller sheltering outside the New Theatre in George Street.

Shamed, the men paid up. But there was something not quite right about the man with the tray and the tin, in spite of his credentials. “What front was that?” I asked suspiciously.

“Worthing,” he replied with a twinkle. “Wettest holiday I ever had.” Well, it was all in a good cause.

PS. A sobering thought. We may have been ‘at peace’ since 1945, but this has not prevented almost 17,000 British servicemen and women from being killed and thousands more injured in various conflicts since then.