Savers can be excused for putting cash in an old sock

Few, certainly, trust shares when London's market plunges - as it did last week - a hundred points at the drop of a hat.

Clem Chambers, chief executive of ADVFN, self-styled Europe's number one stocks and shares website with more than one million registered users, says the first cracks in the stock market became evident in February; he thinks hedge funds were dumping shares in mega-cap FTSE stocks to balance "hits" they were taking on sub-prime debt.

Mr Chambers believes the bull market from 2003 is over - and that London is heading down to 6,000, then possibly 5,200.

"The next 18 months are not going to be nice," he said.

Chambers says small shareholders still in the London market are those who survived the turbulent Nineties.

He thinks about 28 per cent of small investors have got out completely - though many will stay in touch, through ADVFN of course, to time their return.

* Where is cash safe these days?

When a savings plan matured recently, I pondered Premium Bonds, found building societies too boring, and opted for the charms of Colchester Garrison, various hospitals including famous Stoke Mandeville, and a new Home Office HQ, in Westminster.

All these operations, and many more, are operated on behalf of Government by HSBC Infrastructure Fund, a £270m Guernsey-based trust in which you can buy shares through a broker or High Street bank.

For small investors, infrastructure is something new to consider, following rapid growth of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) which gets private firms to run services for the public sector under contract for decades ahead.

PFI is a hugely controversial. The Tories invented it, but some accuse Gordon Brown of using it to disguise gaping holes in the public finances.

Trade unions hate it (for pushing public sector jobs into the private sector, where benefits are less generous), and Guardian columnist George Monbiot rages about it regularly.

He is convinced taxpayers are having to pay more for schools, hospitals, roads and prisons than before.

However, it's a fact that Labour has signed 749 PFI deals since 1997 with a total capital value of £49bn, and PFI will be part of our economic landscape for years to come.

Think of massive infrastructure improvements needed for London's Olympics. If it's done by PFI, each and every one of these projects produces an income stream to last long beyond my lifetime.

Critics of PFI claim profits go to anonymous big business. Funds like HSBC Infrastructure, which can be held in the tax shelter of a PEP or ISA, might give small investors a slice of the action too.

When I invested, the HSBC fund held 17 investments, including Exeter Crown Court, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, the Dutch High Speed Rail Link, the Central and West Middlesex Hospitals and Colchester Garrison.

Since then, it has landed new contracts, including the Metropolitan Police Specialist Training Centre in Gravesend, Kent, police stations in south London and Durham and Cleveland Firearms Training Centre.

It is hard to envisage a UK Government ever becoming too broke to meet contractual obligations, though perhaps a South American junta-style dictatorship in Whitehall could rip up any contracts it disliked, with Mr Monbiot cheering from the wings.

In all the turbulence on financial markets this year, HSBC Infrastructure has barely moved: its share has risen from the issue price of 100p to about 107p.

In its first annual report, it claims a 25 per cent-plus rise in Net Asset Value to 124.4p since launch, and expects to pay a total dividend of about six per cent.

While other stocks are caught in storms sweeping the City, HSBC Infrastructure barely moves a farthing - or, should I say, a quarter of penny - up or down.

Tony Roper, manager of HSBC Infrastructure, says about 40 per cent of his shareholders are private investors, many persuaded to invest by financial advisers.

"In due course," he said, "we will have a capital raising exercise to produce fresh funds and proof of our pudding will come."