IT is, of course, a rum old world when crowd barriers have to be put up to contain the sad gawpers hoping to catch a glimpse of such meretricious modern-day icons as footballer David Beckham and his wife, 'Posh Spice' Victoria Adams - as happened when the pair attended the wedding in Rawtenstall last week of Manchester United team-mate Phil Neville to local lass Julie Killelea.

This is especially so when the response of Posh Spice to this sort of attention seems to be to vulgarly dress in less and less and bring extra aptness to the expression 'show off.'

Be this as it may, however, it is, surely, a still sadder reflection on the times in which we live when we find the police pandering to this sort of caper.

On this occasion, by default they even assisted the happy couple to hide from the cameras of onlookers so that their reported six-figure deal with OK! magazine for exclusive picture rights was not compromised.

I refer to them handing out letters to residents living in the vicinity of this glossy wedding at the church of St James the Less, warning them that they could not park their cars outside their homes for some nine hours that day.

Oh, I know that the police have to deal with the crowd and traffic-control problems that arise on occasions like this.

But when one of the results was that disabled neighbour William Critchley had to move his car elsewhere because these celebrities and easily-amused rubber-neckers were likely to clutter the place up, rather than them ensuring that, in spite of them, Mr Critchley could keep it where it was handiest for him, then I think they did not live up to their duty - to the ordinary citizen whom they are supposed to look after just as much as the so-called stars.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.