Letter - Whatever happened to good manners?

Whatever happened to good manners and citizenship? When I was a child (admittedly a very long time ago) we were taught the value of decent behaviour and of doing a good deed for the day.

Even as children we learned the importance of being polite and considerate. We were encouraged to take responsibility, to be helpful and honest. It was considered unacceptable to be loud, rude and pushy.

Children were given individual roles as 'monitors' at school for everything from collecting pens and books to making pots of tea for the staff. No 'elf and safety' there, then – yet nobody was scalded, nobody sued anybody else because people used their common sense and good manners.

Nowadays all these rules seem to have gone. The other day a young man barged in front of me in the queue for a cash machine without so much as a look; just hunched his shoulders and used the machine as if I wasn't standing there.

I suppose the bad thing about having been politely brought up is that I did not like to challenge him as it would have been rude!

G Ford, Telford