From the pages of Sheffield Today comes the story of Eileen Froggat, a "frail woman with a broken hip" who put her walking stick to excellent use when she found four intruders in her flat. Unconvinced by their claim to be, er, "looking for damp", Eileen whacked one of them over the head with her stick. With the help of her son, she then chased the young men out of the flat before they could make off with any of her valuables. Go Eileen! Lady Bracknell salutes you!

By the way, the stick Eileen is holding in the photograph accompanying the article isn't, strictly speaking, a walking stick. Known in the Bracknell household as a "grabby stick", it's a useful device for picking up things which one's general lack of bendiness would mean were otherwise impossible to reach. For example, the tablets which you have dropped into the narrow space between the kitchen sink and the washing machine because you were temporarily distracted by the sight of a squirrel running along the garden wall. Ahem. They also come in distinctly handy for catching and evicting any large spiders which might happen to be prancing around close to your ceiling and disturbing your equilibrium.

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