SOMETIMES I feel like a living antique – just because I’m old enough to have a set of skills that were once commonplace, but are now rapidly dying out.

You know, stuff like patching and mending, putting in a zip, rescuing a moth-eaten jumper or prolonging the life of some favourite jeans. And cooking from scratch. And gardening.

And mending things.

Although I did once know an Oxford professor who couldn’t even change a light bulb (there’s probably a joke there if I could just think of it), most grown-ups have a similar set of skills. Many can do far more.

It’s a generation thing.

DIY is a dwindling skill Spending on home improvements is plummeting. Which means there must be an awful lot of wonky shelves and shabby paintwork around.

Many 20-somethings not only don’t know how to use a hammer, spanner or screwdriver, they don’t even own one.

As a survey last month revealed that many people just ignore their back gardens and treat them as their own private wilderness, so they probably don’t have a lawnmower, spade or fork either.

They probably will one day.

Home maintenance – like early nights and eating sensibly – eventually creeps up on most of us.

In the meantime, those clueless 20-somethings can always do what we did and ask their parents.While there are parents who still know.