WHAT has happened to our police? Gone are the days of bobbies patrolling our towns and cities.

Always in pairs, they would be walking steadily along, stopping every so often to answer a question from a tourist or a lost local or simply to have a chat.

Their country counterpart, steadily cycling round his patch in fair weather and foul, had time to stop and talk. He would chastise children caught scrumping, throwing the fear of God into them by saying, “Right! I’ll have to tell your father about this.”

Days passed, sadly, which will never come back.

There was a photograph in a national newspaper the other day of a modern policeman in his fully armed glory.

Looking more like a fugitive from a computer game, he had a bullet-proof vest, a sub-machine gun, automatic pistol, Taser, pepper-spray, steel baton, high-tech handcuffs and his scrambled radio just below his mouth so he can summon other officers. Naturally his traditional police head-gear was replaced by the ubiquitous baseball cap.

The bobby of old would have a trusty truncheon and a pair of handcuffs.

Armed police are now, unfortunately, part of our lives, patrolling airports, guarding soldiers on ceremonial sentry-duties at Buckingham Palace and other high-profile buildings.

A great shame those halcyon days of bobbies walking and cycling are part of a bygone era.

Philip Roe, Roman Avenue South, Stamford Bridge, York.