PRINCE Charles is unhappy about Britain's compensation culture. He is not the only one. Everywhere you go there is an ambulance-chasing lawyer urging you to turn your hard luck story into hard cash.

A while back, I took a friend who had broken his wrist to casualty at York District Hospital. I was astonished to see an advert for a city solicitors inside. Had an accident? Not your fault? Ring us and make some easy money, was the gist of the message. And it was all we had to stare at for the several hours it took to see a doctor.

Turn on the telly during daylight, and you are bombarded with adverts offering the same service. "Mrs AN of Winchester broke her hip on an uneven paving slab. Now she's £6,000 richer. Contact us now on 0800-Give-Us-A-Break".

This no pain, no gain, no fee nonsense has even infested our footstreets. A regular sight on York's Parliament Street is the canopy belonging to another bunch of money grubbing mishap merchants. I cannot be the only one who has fervently hoped to slip on one of their discarded leaflets and sue them for every penny they've got.

Two unhappy ideas underpin this insidious business. The first is that there is someone to blame for our every misfortune. You're late for work. You're running down the street, not looking where you're going and you trip. Obviously the council's fault.

Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip? "Silly old me. Fell over and bumped me arm. Be fixed in no time. Don't fuss." That was the British way.

We are all Americans now. Coffee hot? Sue. Traces of nuts in a bag of peanuts? Sue. Fell over drunk outside the pub? Sue the brewery, the landlord and anyone who bought you a round for injury, loss of self-esteem and stained trousers.

The other unhappy idea is that this is free money. It's not. Every council has to pay a fortune in indemnity insurance to cover all these claims (often exaggerated to drain every last penny for the greedy litigants). Then we all pay through higher council tax.

And we are all paying in other ways too. Recently, the Evening Press has carried reports on how local amateur rugby clubs were nearly forced out of business by rocketing indemnity insurance premiums. Then we revealed that private midwives may go to the wall for the same reason.

Now, Britain's bonfire nights are under threat. The Lloyds insurance syndicate which underwrote 5,000 fireworks displays last year is refusing to get involved this November. Even though there were very few problems in 2001, they feel the risk is too high (ie people are too quick to take their troubles to the compensation courts).

Of course it is right that everything should be done to make people safe at sporting and public events. But at this rate we are going to sanitise all the fun out of existence.

Rugby players know there is a chance they will get hurt when they play a game. It is a hazard they were willing to live with because the enjoyment outweighs the risks.

We all know that attending any sort of publicly organised event is not 100 per cent risk free.

But what's the alternative - stay under the duvet every night?

Who knows what York's most famous terrorist and the creator of Bonfire Night Guy Fawkes would have made of this, were he to reappear today.

He might have been delighted. Imagine the claim he could have made against the State: "Mr GF of York won £1 million after being hanged, drawn and quartered in public. Call us now if you've been ritually executed by the State..."

Updated: 11:32 Wednesday, October 02, 2002