ONE of the disappointing things about getting older is you don’t get to be proud of your kids as often as you used to.

Not that you ever lose that pride, even as they grow into adults. It’s just that you don’t hang around with them as much as you did when they were little.

So when they do something that makes you want to say “That’s my boy” (or “That’s my girl”), you probably won’t be there to see it.

And so it was with my son, who told us of his chance encounter with a confused lady with a Scottish accent in the town centre. It went something like this… Confused Lady: “Excuse me. I’m looking for the John Murray Tower.”

Son (resisting the temptation to point out that it’s Murray John, not John Murray): “You’ve found it. It’s that building there.”

He was also too polite to point out that the tallest building in the town turned out to be the elusive tower she was looking for. The clue was in the name.

Confused Lady: “Well it says on the sign that that’s called the Brunel Tower.”

Son: “That’s right. For some reason, it’s got two names.”

To be fair, I’ve never understood that either, but it really annoyed Confused Lady, who now transformed herself into Grumpy Lady.

Grumpy Lady: “Well that’s stupid.

I wish I’d never come to this crummy little town in the first place.”

Son: “In that case, make sure you don’t come back.”

And then he walked off, having given the perfect answer.

Now don’t get me wrong. We brought our kids up to be respectful and therefore polite, and you would never catch either of them being otherwise without a reason.

But when somebody like Grumpy Lady insists on being disrespectful in the first place, they deserve a taste of their own medicine.

I have been to some pretty rough places in my life, and some of them might even qualify as a “crummy little town”, but to say so is out of order.

What makes me most proud of my son is that, even before he has reached his 22nd birthday, he is demonstrating a quality that only comes to older people. Youngsters are usually cock sure that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but he has realised that one of the finest qualities you can have in life is pride in your hometown.

What’s more, he has worked out that Swindon isn’t a crummy little town, regardless of who says so. Why else would it have been overspilling its boundaries for more than 170 years, endlessly attracting new people to it?

They don’t come for our fantastic climate, our golden beaches or herds of wilderbeest sweeping majestically across Penhill Park, so it must have something else going for it.

And in relaying the story to me, my son came up with the same 64 thousand dollar question I always ask whenever those people who enjoy a good moan start knocking Swindon: if it’s really that bad, then why hasn’t everybody left? How come so many people are happy to make their home here?

It’s far from perfect and we deserve better from the people who run it, but it’s home, and if you want to call it a crummy little town, then try doing what the boy says. Shut the door quietly on your way out.