CONFRONTATION WITH GANG WAS HARD LESSON IN RACE RELATIONS

RUNNING down the stairs in my block of flats last week, I stopped to check the mail at the bottom of the close entry. I heard banging and looked out to the big glass-framed back door and saw a young boy in audible distress.

"Missus, please let me in!" he shouted.

As soon as I opened the door, he came bursting in, completely out of breath.

"What is going on?" I asked and let him sit on the stairs as he gasped for air.

He explained that a gang of youths had chased him all the way from Hillhead to the back court of our West End flats.

"Is it school mates or is this serious, and what the hell have you done tothem to be this scared?" I asked him.

He told me his name and that he was 15 years old, and said the guys bullied him at school. He then tried to stand up to them and they gave chase.

I popped my head out my front door and, sure enough, there were about nine teenage boys gathered 30 yards from the close.

The young boy was terrified when I confirmed I had spotted the gang. He climbed the stairs as my front door is partially glass, therefore exposing him.

"Can you call your parents?" I asked him.

"No, they are at work and don't have mobiles," he said. He sat shaking.

He told me he lived locally and was trying to get back to his own street.

"Do you want me to call the police?" I asked him.

"No, the guys will get angry and beat me more at school." He started crying.

I was incensed; there is nothing more heart-wrenching than seeing a kid this scared and frightened to walk the streets.

"OK, here's what we will do," I suggested. "You put on my jacket and I will take your arm and we will walk in the opposite direction; this will give you time to run home."

"No, I am too frightened and don't have keys, but I can go to the library - I am supposed to be studying. They will spot me."

"Not if you are wearing a big sheepskin jacket and taking the arm of an old woman walking away from them; they can't see you from the back," I assured him.

We walked out of the close and headed away from the gang. The young boy was trembling as I took his arm and insisted he walk slowly until we made it to the corner.

He ripped off my jacket, thanked me and ran straight across a busy road, narrowly missing a speeding bus.

It's at this point I should tell you the young boy was white and the gang of youths were Asian.

I left him and headed towards the Asian youths. There were nine, I counted, mostly in their late teens, but I could be wrong.

"Guys, were you looking for a big boy in a black-and-red jumper?" I asked them.

"Yes, where is he?" the older boy snapped. He was tall and quite aggressive towards me.

"I saw him run that way." I pointed in the opposite direction. "

We are gonna beat him up and break his jaw," the big guy answered.

"Well, there are a lot of you and only one of him, maybe you should go easy," I suggested.

"Shut up, you whore. We will rape you," a smaller boy on a bike shouted at me.

The gang laughed loudly and it took every fibre of my being not to stick a fork in his head. I don't take well to insults from kids, especially ones about rape.

"That's really respectful, I am sure your mother must be proud you speak to women that way," I replied, unfazed.

"You're racist!" the tall boy shouted into my face. I managed to laugh and walk away.

I walked on then called the police and gave them the details of the situation. I was worried about the boy in the black-and-red jumper. If it transpired there was a violent attack and I had done nothing, I would never have forgiven myself.

It felt really odd and uncomfortable explaining the situation to the officer on the phone; I kept feeling that, by talking about the Asian youth's attitude, I sounded like a BNP party leader. Why is that?

Had the boy been Asian and the gang white, I would have felt and done the exact same thing.

I hope that boy made it home safely and I hope the boy on the bike learns a bit of respect.

SEE HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES, DAVID

DAVID Cameron decided to spend the night with an Asian family to "get in touch with the people".

So he left his millionaire pad in Notting Hill and swapped it for a six-bedroomed house overlooking the Warwickshire county cricket ground.

I want him to come and stay with my sister and her husband Brian.

Brian is 42 and has MS. He lives in cramped conditions and sleeps on a bed in the living room. Carers put him to bed at 8:30pm every night and get him up at 8am. He has no choice about these times, they are what is set down in the NHS care package.

David Cameron is more than welcome to come and see how a man who has worked all his life has his bedtime dictated to him by an over-burdened health care system.

Brian also can't get the money to help build an extension that would give him some dignity and space in the home he tried to make with his young family.

Come around, Mr Cameron: see how the other half lives.

THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO HELPED SHAUN KEEP HIS HEAD

THOSE who read my column regularly will know of my ten-year-old nephew Shaun, the boy who sprayed his hair white to look cool.

His big head got him into bother again last week - he fell and cracked his skull and had a small brain bleed.

His poor mammy was wrung out like a rag emotionally, so I rushed up to the brain injury ward in Glasgow's Southern General Hospital. When I arrived, there were no other patients on the ward, essentially giving Shaun a private room.

The wee man was lying in bed in his pyjamas, smiling and calling out for more milk. Three lovely nurses were fussing over him, feeding him toast and jam while he watched a video.

He looked like a wee Hugh Hefner with his "ladies" attending to all his needs.

Thank you, lovely nurses. Shaun is home and well and has promised never to try to jump over the bin shelters again.