• I LEFT church one Sunday evening and decided to go to my local store. In the dim light I did not see a lurking paving stone waiting to up-end me.

A young man crossed the road and uttered the immortal words: “Are you all right?” It turned out that I was not. I had cracked two ribs, a bone in my neck, and had bruising to my left hand and forehead.

The next fortnight I spent in pain with my ribs. Getting in and out of bed resembled the behaviour of a beached crab, all flailing limbs.

University College Hospital took very efficient and compassionate care of me although one overworked medic did comment they got tired of having to treat people who had fallen over on pavements in Camden.

And there is the nub. We have a local authority which has been starved of funding and where gaps are bound to appear in their services when they have hard decisions to make over budgets.

A law firm declined to take on my case but since then, quite deliciously, a Camden worker has come along and marked in yellow the paving stones which require renovation, including the one I tripped over.

Do I forget about it or find a lawyer who will take on my claim for compensation from a cash-strapped authority? Come to think of it, they have probably taken out insurance against this very eventuality.

CHRISTOPHER MASON, NW1