BEFORE long, one of our high street banks could find itself at the wrong end of a sex discrimination case.

Look in your handbag. Do you always carry your passport or, if you drive, your driving licence? More importantly, can you produce a gas or electricity bill, a phone or water company account or a council tax demand in your name? That's where the sex discrimination comes in.

For married women, such documents tend to be sent to the husband. All ours are in Sir's name. Why should I go through the hassle, and inevitable mistakes, of changing one to my name just to prove I'm me where I've banked for 40-odd years?

I can produce a driving licence, a photo-ID card from a professional body, and several membership cards from respectable organisations, plus the bank's own statements and cards. But that lot doesn't include two acceptable items.

The fear that even those of us collecting housekeeping money may be involved in terrorist "laundering" is blamed for strict rules on two pieces of identification. Women are far less likely than men to have two "acceptable" items.

It hits the less well-off, too, but there is no law against class discrimination. I stood in a bank inquiry queue behind a young woman who'd never travelled abroad, didn't drive and wasn't a householder. She was totally unable to open an account.

It could as easily have been a young man, or anyone on a low income or benefits - and bank accounts are seen as the route to benefits now. Cynics believe it's part of the plot to do away with counter staff by driving us all to use phone or internet accounts and holes in the wall, in desperation.

* Neither on August 15, nor at any other time, have I described the sea off the West of Ireland as "icily cold", as R Lewis of Birtley claimed in a letter to the editor last week. My knowledge of that country's coast is, in any case, limited to its Eastern seaboard. On August 15, I wrote about the standard of hotel rooms.