With all the bad news we are getting these days, it's easy to overlook some of the minor disasters that are happening around us all the time. Of course, to those upon whom such mishaps befall, they may not be considered as minor, and can be as upsetting as it is to a widowed pensioner, who, having collected her weekly state pension from the post office, loses it, or has it stolen, on her way home. Far more disastrous to her than a ten per cent fall in share prices is to someone living off their stock holdings.

I once completed a character analysis questionnaire; one of the questions was: "What would upset you more: (A) the death of five hundred people in an earthquake in Mongolia, or (B) a young girl dying of leukaemia in Milton Keynes?" Although I felt my answer was morally wrong, I was honest, and put my cross in box B.

So, it was only natural for me to be more upset when I heard that an elderly woman charity collector had her bag stolen, than I was when I read that the value of British Telecom shares was falling. This was no surprise to me, especially since they quoted me an exorbitant "fixed charge" for fitting an additional telephone socket, a sure way of losing a loyal customer of long standing.

The woman had called at a house to deliver a magazine and collect a subscription in support of medical charities. She left her cycle parked at the kerb, and when she returned about a minute later, found that her bag, containing magazines and some of the cash she had collected, had been stolen. "That's the third time that's happened to me," she confided to my daughter.

You may think she was tempting the ungodly to steal her bag, and should have known that property cannot be left unattended anywhere without a real risk of it being stolen. But the charitable woman had merely shown too much faith in human nature, and it would probably never have crossed her mind that a thief who knew she was collecting money, unescorted, had seen her as an easy victim.

I hope she has learnt her lesson and will continue her good work, for the world has a great need of charitable people, because the numbers needing charity is ever growing. And as Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-97) so aptly advised: "To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it."

Having a daughter raising cattle and sheep in Wales, I'm as concerned as she and her family are about the effects of the epidemic of foot and mouth disease. Fortunately, for them, the outbreak has not yet reached their part of Wales, but they, like thousands of our beleaguered farmers, can do little more than pray that their animals don't fall victims to this dreadful scourge.

This food crisis has set me thinking about vegetarianism. Something I had never seriously contemplated. Probably because I lived through the time when almost everybody was rationed to about one shilling's (5p) worth of meat a week. A time when a meat and vegetable pie might comprise a couple of slices of corned beef and whatever vegetables were available.

This made us long to get our teeth into a generous helping of tasty roast beef, at least once a week. Nowadays, most people can afford to eat meat every day of the week.

I was again reminded of vegetarianism when Coronation Street's Curly Watts forgot to switch on the oven - something I've done - when cooking a joint for a dinner party. But Ashley Peacock saved the day by providing an assortment of his competition-standard sausages. Surprisingly, the carnivorous diners enjoyed the vegetarian variety.

If rearing animals to eat gets any riskier, perhaps vegetarianism is the answer. But what would we do with all our livestock?