TODAY’S news included an item about an elderly man who was robbed of his life’s savings.

Aug 21 2008 by Joel Garner, North Wales Weekly News

He had allowed into his home two men who identified themselves as belonging to one of the utility companies, come to check the water pressure.

Their identity tags were bogus. The news item included warnings and helpful advice to the rest of us on how to avoid such a thing happening. Too late, of course, for the victim, who said: “It seems you can’t trust anyone these days.”

One can have sympathy with that view. Trust does seem to have become a rare commodity in everyday life. Not because there are people queuing up to do us harm, although it is a sad fact that many parents feel it necessary to adjure their children to trust no one. It’s because there are so many who have forfeited our trust. There are politicians who have set a poor example by their lack of personal integrity, tradesmen who give poor service and over-charge, insurers who hide behind technicalities, to mention just a few examples.

Fortunately most of us have friends and family in whom we can trust implicitly, whose word is their bond, who would never, ever let us down.