WHEN I heard that my local railway station was likely to become fully automated, I was panic-stricken.

So was everyone else in the queue that morning, as we all swapped stories as to how we had struggled with the machines that could be found adjacent to the ticket desk.

With both my daughters away at university, I’m a regular at the main line station and don’t know what I would do without the helpful staff sorting out what are sometimes fragmented journeys across the country.

I had enough trouble with automation in London recently, trying to top up an Oyster card. Alarmingly, when I looked around the concourse at King’s Cross, there wasn’t a staff member to be seen.

The most ridiculous thing is that automated machines are billed as ‘fast’, and yet so many people have problems. I’ve been at the counter many times when staff have had to deal with tickets that have not appeared or not printed properly. What happens when there is no one to help with those things?

This, I am sad to say, is the future, where people are replaced by machines.

A new study suggests this is happening now on a grand scale. It claims that two thirds of the fastest declining jobs in Britain are being hit because of increased automation and advances in technology.

Travel agents, kitchen staff, nail technicians and translators are already being replaced by robots, according to the report by search engine Adzuna, which looked at 79 million job adverts placed over the past two years.

There’s an experiment currently being undertaken at Saltaire Brewery to see whether a robot can pull a better pint.

Changes in consumer culture, such as online holiday bookings, are seen as responsible.

Last year I tried to book a holiday online and found coordinating flights with accommodation and other travelling arrangements really difficult, but maybe it’s an age thing. My daughter took over and sorted it out in no time.

Call me old-fashioned but I actually need a human being. Not every real person offers great customer service - they don’t, but it is far more reassuring to deal with someone face-to-face than pushing buttons on a machine.

I get fed up of being approached in the building society queue and urged to use the machines. There are so few staff left that the queue is often long, but I am still not sufficiently confident in the system to use an automated service.

You only have to look at recent events within the NHS to see how our reliance on automation can go wrong. My mum’s appointment with her GP was cancelled because the surgery had no access to her medical history. That would not have happened in the days of paper records.

The concept of pushing all the right buttons isn’t only confined to workplaces.

A £12,000 sex robot was the subject of an exchange on Loose Women, with the panel divided on whether they would sleep with the machine.

If it could make the beds afterwards, vacuum the house and wash-up I’d consider it myself.

Automation has been taking over for a long time. When you think of the thousands of workers who used to flood out of factory gates, now one machine can do the work of dozens.

Of course we need automation. The world would grind to a halt without it, but the human touch is still necessary. I actually look forward to visiting the railway station ticket office, with its familiar, friendly staff, some of whom have a brief chat before I head off. And hearing the requirements of some people - forward-facing, single, window seat, cushions, foot spa - I can’t imagine how a machine would cope.