If you always think the worst of people, the world becomes a much smaller, meaner place.

YOU have to laugh. Though maybe we should weep. Marilyn Gordon, 72, pillar of society, Sunday school teacher, former chairman of South Tyneside magistrates, was questioned at length by police over some little white tablets in the lost bag she was reclaiming from the police station.

The police thought Mrs Gordon was clearly a suspicious character and that the tablets were dangerous drugs, possibly cocaine. They were actually sweeteners. A bit of a difference. A suspicious bank card was her daughter's. And still Mrs Gordon was at the police station for several hours while tests were done, checks made.

Do you remember the time when we used to think the best of everyone? Gosh, that seems like a long time ago. We also used to use common sense. Now that's another commodity in short supply. It's not just over-zealous police: all of us have become anxious and suspicious, suspecting evil intent in the most unlikely places. No wonder we're so stressed.

A young mother recently had to get off her flight with her two small children when there was a mix up over seats and a stranger kindly volunteered to hold her three-month-old baby for the duration of the short flight. Not allowed. The kind stranger might really have been a child abuser, said airline staff.

It's what we think of any adult who takes an interest in children. Old men at garden gates... old ladies at bus stops... scout leaders.... sports coaches... volunteers in schools... We're ready to think the worst in a second.

It's why we've turned our schools into fortresses and are terrified to let children out to play. We live in constant low level fear and make them do the same.

Yet the number of murders and abductions are just about the same as they were 50 years ago. Children are still far more likely to be murdered in their own homes by their own family than by a stranger.

Yes, we have to be wary, but too many of us limit our lives out of fear. And surely scaring our children witless can't do them much good either?

Probably too naÃve, I still like to think the best of people. I walk and drive miles alone. I make solitary visits to strange cities and so far have met nothing but kindness.

One day, of course, I might be proved horribly wrong. But at least in the meantime I will have travelled lighter and enjoyed the world more, without that heavy burden of fear and suspicion.

And I will presume that any elderly ladies are innocent until proved otherwise - with or without a bag full of sweeteners.

MY 91-year-old aunt has had a stroke and is in hospital. Ironically, it is the same hospital where, over 50 years ago, she established a training school for nurses - begging and borrowing desks and chairs, squirreling away books and stationery for her students and, above all, instilling them with her love of the profession and high standards of care.

Later she became a matron and then an inspector of hospitals. Now she is a little old lady in the corner of a busy ward, a model patient, not making a fuss, devising her own exercise programme as - a month after she was admitted - no physiotherapist has yet devised one for her.

Yet although she is deaf and her left side is almost useless, her brain and her observations are as sharp as ever. From her neglected little corner she has noticed a whole long list of things that could be improved - mostly small things, including the way medicines are dished out, the serving of food, the taking of notes and the washing of patients. All in all, they would make patients' lives more comfortable and nurses' lives less busy, as well as dramatically cutting the risk of infection.

The Government is constantly spending millions on more advisers, management consultants and so called experts to find ways to improve the NHS. They could do far worse than ask the little old lady in the corner of the ward who's seen it from both sides.

Believe me, she'd soon put them right.

WAYNE Rooney's girlfriend Coleen McLoughlin is no doubt a lovely girl. But she is just 20 years old and has put her name to an autobiography. A whole book about being Wayne Rooney's girlfriend. And shopping. She talks confidently about her career. Um... which is what exactly?

Still, as she's worth about £3m and we're not, maybe we should all encourage our daughters to forget A levels and find footballer boyfriends instead.

At this rate, there'll be a degree course in it soon.