Reading Roars!

Is Reading getting rougher? I have noticed a recent rise in bad behaviour on our town’s streets.

A few weeks ago, returning from work, I saw a girl very aggressively pulling another girl’s hair in public. The victim was pleading with the assailant to let go. Several minutes passed until a guy came rushing over to intervene.

The day before yesterday, I witnessed a lad strike his girlfriend (presumably) in the face during an argument, again in public. Yesterday, while kayaking through the Oracle Riverside a couple of lads gobbed at us from the bridge, missing me but getting someone else in the group. Idiotic, moronic, bored, pathetic losers.

All this is pretty vile behaviour. And, of course, members of the public stood by and did nothing. Understandably so, as the perpetrators could have been concealing knives or other weapons.

What I find worrying is the absence of police officers on the streets. Where are they? They seem to be an invisible force these days. Of course, you see plenty of them about on Saturday night, when squads of chavs come out to play, but during the daytime they are missing.

Reading is becoming a less civilised place, and it makes me sad. Either that or I’m getting old.