Walking through Slade Green to the station on a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I saw a group of boys in the distance. They were sitting at a bus stop, messing around, swearing loudly and play-fighting.

The other people waiting for the bus were giving them a wide berth and, frankly, looked a bit scared of what they might do.

When I got there, I also decided to keep out of their way and chose to stand on the other side of the bus stop.

The boys - who when I saw them close up can't have been much older than 12 or 13 - were getting louder, and ruder, using the worst possible language. One of them was eating crisps and chucked the packet on the ground.

I looked at him - and then at the litter bin about 10 feet away which he had chosen not to use.

Now I had a decision to make.

Did I suggest he picked it up and risk a mouthful of abuse - and perhaps worse?

Or did I, like everyone else, just shuffle uncomfortably and ignore his behaviour?

Well, I took that decision a few years ago. I always speak up against litter louts and bad behaviour. It's something my mum has always done on principle and I have to uphold the family tradition.

So I went over to the lad and asked: "Excuse me, do you live here?"

"Yeah." he said

So I said: "I'm not trying to be funny, but this is where you live and you should be proud of it. You've just dropped that and made the place more messy. There's a litter bin over there and you should put that packet in it. And if you don't, I will do it."

For a few seconds he and his mates looked at me in stunned and silent disbelief.

The boy who had chucked the crisp packet started saying "It wasn't me..."

But one of his mates had clearly got the message and tugged his arm: "Pick it up" he said.

And with that the young boy quietly picked up the packet, deposited it in the litter bin and came back to sit quietly on the bench.

I strongly believe that all kids start out good and the ones who choose to behave badly do so because of bad role models. Kids who drop litter do it because their parents don't care - or they hang around with other kids whose parents don't care.

Kids need boundaries - they like to have rules to live by.

It is part of the job of being a kid to test the boundaries to see what you can get away with.

It isn't the job of the police, or the council, to show them the boundaries. It's everyone's job.

If decent people don't stand up for society why should we expect someone else to do it for us?

And if we are afraid of our kids, is that their fault or ours?