Drunk pensioner set bad example (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Drunk pensioner set bad example

11:08am Thursday 2nd July 2009

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Sir.–I read with great interest your article of June 19 about the problems of under-age drinking (‘Battle against booze-fuelled crime and nuisance behaviour among young people’) and ask: Is it any wonder the youth of today have a problem with drink, given the example they are set by generations who should know better?

I happened to take a train home from London to Basingstoke on a recent Saturday night and had the misfortune to share a carriage with an elderly gentleman seemingly returning from the Ascot Races. He was aged in his late 60s or early 70s and smartly dressed. But he was also terribly drunk.

And so it was that the entire journey was ruined by the incomprehensible, slurred gibberish that he chose to direct at any other passenger who made the mistake of catching his eye. Indeed, the only peace we got was when he was forced to dash to the toilet, where he was violently sick. On emerging from the facilities, he began chanting “One nil to the curry sauce”, which he appeared to find inordinately funny.

As a senior citizen myself, I was deeply embarrassed by these sordid carryings-on. If one has not learned to control oneself by one’s seventh decade, what hope do we have of melding the behaviour of those of more tender years?

Name and address supplied.

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