WE are enjoying cakes in the garden of an Arundel tea shop (coffee and walnut for me, peach and fig for my husband) and I was saying that I thought the blue bush to the right of us was of the same variety as the one we have on our patio, when something round and rubbery bounced past.

Actually it was my husband who saw it. I was too busy ticking him off for not taking any interest in our garden shrub situation.

While I continued with my horticultural diatribe, he also caught sight of a youth making a quick exit in the same direction.

It wasn't until a few moments later, when the tea shop staff also came running out muttering "little blighters", that we realised a crime had been committed.

Awheel and handlebars had been stolen from one of the staff's bikes. They seemed to have a good idea who was responsible, but my husband's ever-observant eye means that he is a key witness and that it may not now be necessary to contact Crimewatch.

Idon't know if it's that he is extra vigilant, or just that do-badders don't notice him and so take risks right under his nose, but this isn't the first time my husband has been the Miss Marple of Sussex.

Afew years ago in Lewes, he was waiting for me to come out of the dentist's when four men ran past him and jumped into a car, which then sped off. As this was not the sort of behaviour usually seen in Lewes on a Thursday morning, he made a note of the numberplate and dialled 999.

The first I knew of this was when he rushed into the dentist's waiting room and told me he was going to take a little trip in a police car.

"Why, what have you done?" I asked, thinking that perhaps he was being arrested for parking on a double yellow line.

"Helping them catch some robbers," he puffed, before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

The next person to dash into the waiting room was another patient who'd just heard there had been a hold-up at the post office down the road. The police were not on the scene and a young man seemed to be helping them with their inquiries, he said.

"Oh, that'll be my husband," I said, nodding.

Half-an-hour later, my husband returned. He'd spent the time whizzing up and down the A27 trying to spot the robbers' get-away car. Thanks to him - and others - the men were eventually caught and sentenced.

Heroic? My husband says he only did what any decent citizen would have done, but I don't think this is true. I consider myself quite decent, but people could be breaking the law all around me and I probably wouldn't even notice.

The difference is my husband suspects most of us are up to no good and he usually finds his evidence.

For years he's been threatening to shop me over the ashtray from a posh restaurant that somehow found its way into my bag. I'm innocent, of course.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.