PERHAPS this is difficult to believe but the sun shone in Beggarsdale last week. For a couple of hours and despite the fact that the weather forecast had promised tropical rainstorms, tidal waves, blizzards and erupting volca-noes.

As no-one takes any notice of the weather forecasts any more, because they are so hopelessly inaccurate these days, a number of visitors were out and about in Beggarsdale when the sun showed its face and a few of them stopped for pub lunches at the Beggars' Arms.

These people are generally made very welcome by the Innkeeper and his lady because this year's appalling summer following on last year's foot and mouth debacle has made business very tough indeed.

But even with hard cash at stake, Mine Hosts were hard pressed indeed to put up with the antics of one family which disembarked from an expensive people carrier: small, nervous dad, tall, thin, po-faced mum, and two hyperactive kids, a boy and a girl aged about seven and eight, already squawking and squealing.

They sat at a table outside by the front door. The pub was pretty busy at the time and the woman took her time getting to the bar and ordering her veggie burgers and fizzy waters but the Innkeeper listened patiently.

It was the straws that caused the first inkling of friction...

The woman, you see, had ordered two glasses of fizzy water (no pop for these kids) with straws. And as the Inn-keeper pushed them across the bar, he pulled a couple of the same from a multi-coloured jar of the things.

"That won't do at all," said the woman, her long, thin face taut.

"Sorry, Madame," asked the Innkeeper, puzzled. "I don't think I

understand."

"One's red and one's green," the woman snapped. "That's sure to cause a squabble."

The Innkeeper, thoroughly bemused, looked down at the drinks on the bar and shook his head: being water, they were all very much, well, water-coloured.

"The straws," she explained as though talking to a particularly obtuse pet dog. "They are different colours. That will cause a fight because whoever gets the green one will want the red one and vice versa."

From outside came a thwack, a wail, and into the bar came running the little girl. "Tristram's hit me," she cried, throwing her arms round mother's legs.

"Never mind, precious," chirped the woman to the girl. In a different tone entirely, she snapped at the Inn-keeper: "You see, they've started

already."

"That is hardly my fault," said the landlord. "Perhaps you should maintain better control over your children."

"Really," said the woman, pushing her purse back into her handbag. "In that case, I think we shall find another establishment for lunch..."

"As you will," said the Innkeeper, with a solemn smile, knowing full well that there was nowhere else selling lunch for miles.

Normally, his wife would have been furious at lost business but, only a few days before, they had been discussing a newspaper article saying that parents were now frightened of their children.

Rather than cementing a marriage together, today's so-called experts believe that children are so demanding that they actually burst that ancient institution asunder.

Time was when a good smart slap round the back of the leg did wonders for family discipline. That, of course, is illegal nowadays. The last straw, so to speak.

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.