WAS IT ALL STAGE-MANAGED? GRUMPY OLD

GRAN'S  VERDICT ON THUMPY OLD GRAN

I should be gasping with envy after gritty granny Ann Timson’s incredible bravery in seeing off six would-be jewel thieves with her mighty handbag.

But while the 71-year-old Northampton pensioner’s amazing bravery grabbed headlines in the UK, Spain and indeed all around the world, I'm afraid Grumpy Old Gran's jury is still out on Thumpy Old Gran.

It’s not that I would have dared to lay into those yobs in the way Ann did. Not likely. I might be a few years younger than her but a heart condition, Parkinson's Disease and an arthritic back are hardly suitable weapons for nailing delinquents.

It’s just that something about the all-too-clear video of the action doesn’t run true. It is simply too coincidental that a camera should capture virtually every moment from the perfect vantage point.

 We saw it all - from the thugs sledging at the jewellers’ window and the animated manager leaping frenetically about in the entrance of the shop as the blinds came down, to Ann entering stage right, standing out from everyone else in her bright red coat, jogging across the road and unhesitatingly performing a solo bag bash on the would-be robbers.

Even the passers-by looked more like film extras as they stood, virtually motionless, watching the one-woman windmill whirl reduce the gold-digging gang to a fleeing flock of frightened fools.

The action is all so clinical. Like a scene from a movie. Had it been April 1^st I would have instantly believed it was a bizarre attempt to fool the public. The subsequent interviews with the shop manager and his staff also seemed too smooth – their eloquence smacking of professional actors articulating a prepared script rather than shocked employees.

Now I am not saying any of it WAS an act. In fact, reports that most of the villains of the piece are facing criminal charges is surely conclusive evidence that Ann’s intervention was all a genuine instance of true heroism in the face of real danger.

By all accounts the former market trader has spent ten years challenging violent criminals on the estate where she lives.

According to the Daily Mail, her neighbourhood, once notorious for its lawlessness, used to be rife with drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes. But it is claimed that Ann helped turn the Spring Boroughs estate in Northampton from a ‘violent crack den into a thriving community’.

So why on earth am I so reluctant to concede that this was a very special event until a court actually convicts the gang of the offences we all saw?

Even then, no one will convince me this was not a staged reconstruction of what actually happened, rather than the real thing.

I mean, if it wasn't a set-up, why was the camera there in the first place? It didn't exactly look like a street full of action, did it?

If what we saw was the action as it truly happened, Ann is a fantastic lady - reconstruction or not.

There is no doubt she has struck a mighty blow for the credibility of a section of society that is largely invisible to Britain’s movers and shakers.

I just hope we are not going to see her reduced from a thoroughbred grey with a special pedigree to an also-Gran who was not really at the race.