THEY could have been at home knitting cardigans for great-grandchildren, but I wouldn't have dared suggest it.

The dozen women, pink T-shirted, all of riper years and known collectively as Older and Bolder, were shaming the less energetic with their music-accompanied exercise routine beneath the Westgate Centre portico.

The oldest was a sprightly 85-year-old, skipping around like a two-year-old. Others, housebound before joining the group, were proof that regular exercise had given them fresh purpose as well as new chums.

This was their contribution to National Falls Awareness Day. (Have you noticed how there's a special day for everything now?). Keep fit, avoid a fall and live longer - the message was plain enough.

It's sad but true that a tumble often spells the end for elderly people. If injury doesn't kill them, loss of confidence does.

Looking on was Nick Welch, the county council's head of services for planning and partnership - and partnership between councils, the NHS and charities is what it was all about. He explained that caring for someone who had lost mobility cost four times more than for someone able to cope unaided. Fitness freed cash for other needs.

But the day could have been a non-starter had it not been for two new partners'. The young couple, running the cappuccino bar only feet away, risked their manager's wrath by allowing the group to plug into a spare socket when its battery-operated CD player failed to start. No music would have ruined the effect.

In contrast, across Bonn Square, a couple lounged on the wall - he smelly and unshaven, she sallow and old before her time - their inadequately camouflaged bottles of booze poking from dirty plastic bags. They found the scene hilarious.

I think I know who will have the last laugh.

MEANWHILE, shoppers in the nearby Primark store were eyeing little black numbers - see-through crocheted dresses at a bargain price of £6.

"How about me in this one?" said a middle-aged woman posing playfully while holding up a dress for her husband to see.

"If you can get in it, why not?" he replied rather ungallantly. "But you'd better hurry up before those women in pink grab the lot!"

THE small schoolgirl in Sainsbury's car park at Kidlington was sobbing bitterly. I asked her mother if I could help.

"Not unless you can persuade JK Rowling not to kill off Harry Potter," she said.

"THREE for the price of two! Get your St George's underpants here!"

The market trader was in danger of shouting himself hoarse.

Last week, he was selling in ones this special underwear, displaying red crosses front and back. Why the change of tactics?

"It's a pair to wear, a pair to spare and one to wave when England win," he said.

His explanation was less than convincing "OK - I'm rumbled," he grinned. "But if I don't get rid before the Portugal match and our lads come unstuck, I could be lumbered with a load of briefs nobody wants."

So much for patriotism!