THE chap on the train, first class too, thought it was hysterically funny to demand the young waitress bring him “a nice fresh tart with no dressing”, nudge nudge. She remained brilliantly stony-faced and refused to be embarrassed.

Unlike the waitress in a posh restaurant I was visiting once when a group of businessmen – expensive suits, polished shoes, good cufflinks – thought it the greatest fun to humiliate her with talk of melons, or dumplings boiling over. They also tried “accidentally” to brush against her as she leaned over the table and talked loudly of what they would like to do with their female colleagues.

I wondered then if they had teenage daughters at home and how they would feel if they were humiliated like that.

If it’s bad now, it was much worse 40 years ago, when men were men and women were fair game. Remember that infamous picture of Chris Tarrant lifting up the bikini top of the future Duchess of Wessex?

All, of course, a bit of fun, bit of a laugh. Can’t you take a joke? Ho ho ho.

People are surprised that when young girls complained many years ago about the antics of Jimmy Savile, that the men in authority took no notice. I’m not.

With men like those businessmen in charge, I’m not sure they’d find it that much easier to be heard today.