A TV advert showed happy smiling pensioners, who were no longer as active as they once were, buzzing about in motorised wheelchairs and four wheeled scooters.

The machines looked very comfortable and just the thing for popping out to the post office or to visit friends down the road.

There are already quite a few about Huddersfield.

Anything that improves mobility has to be good, hasn’t it? But has anyone sensed where this trend might be heading?

We are an ageing population and it is predicted that we are all going to live longer than ever before. In a decade’s time everybody’s Auntie Doris might have a motorised scooter and the roads and pavements could be clogged with geriatrics in wheelchairs and scooters with straight-through exhausts and go faster stripes.

All of a sudden, Hell’s Grannies from Monty Python will no longer be fiction but reality.

I have checked out mobility scooters and you can get a top-of-the-range GT model for £15 a week that does a mean eight miles an hour.

Of course, when everybody has one there will be the desire to customise and glamorise them, with dozens of mirrors and fur tails tied to radio aerials. And forget about an 8mph speed limit.

Once grandad has the black leather jacket he’ll want the special engine conversion to boost his power. Soon he’ll be doing 0 to 12 miles an hour in under 10 minutes, as long as he’s going downhill with a tailwind.

I look forward to a continuing surge of motorised mobility for older citizens who still have old values.

Never mind the police sending out community support officers.

What we need are vigilante patrols of seniors in armoured wheelchairs, armed with walking sticks and loud opinions.

They will soon regain the streets from hoodie hooligans.