When I first arrived in Brighton in 1960 it was still rather old-fashioned and the rot hadn't set in. There were plenty of beatniks and hippies but very little in the way of rudeness, violence and vandalism.

I have noticed an increase in letters to the Argus complaining about noise and vandalism, bad manners and the crass idiocy of cyclists.

As one correspondent wrote recently, it is now a question of looking over one's

shoulder with a feeling of impending disaster.

-G. Bolton, Shirley Street, Hove