Many years ago I always wanted to drive a dodgem car but for some reason my parents would never let me.

It would have been fun, deliberately crashing into other drivers, or bouncing of the side walls. Not so much, I suppose, if everyone decided you were the target.

Many years later I got the chance. Grown up and having had a license to drive for some years I thought the practical experience would help.

It didn’t.

Nor did I realise just how painful it was when someone else crashed into you, especially if you were not expecting it.

I was reminded of this experience recently when having to try and find a parking space at a hospital car park at the wrong time if the day.

There were no spaces available.

This meant I had to keep moving while my wife went in for her appointment.

Thus begun an hour and a half of ducking and weaving, dodging reversing cars, and witnessing the very worse of mankind, stealing parking spaces from those who had been patiently waiting.

It happened to me three times, being caught on the wrong side of the car reversing out, only to watch another slip in.

They knew I was waiting, but ignored etiquette.

Calling them out got me a stream in foul language that brought my heritage into question, some doubt about whether my parents were married at the time of my conception, and words that I wouldn’t use myself, even under my breath.

And these from people driving very expensive cars and for all intents and purposes, people my father would say were my betters.

They were not.

Having money and displayable wealth, I have learned, does not make you a better person.

But, sadly, in this car park, there seems to be an extraordinary large concentration of them.

By the third occurrence, I did the unthinkable. I drove strait at the offending car and blocked its way, almost getting crashed into, dodgem style.

I was banking on the fact that posh person didn’t want to dent their lovely posh car and I was right.

Parking space secure, but at the cost of having my heritage and birth status impugned yet again, I felt an odd sense of victory.