Recently, I spent some time at Heathrow Airport bus station, awaiting a connection for Weymouth.

Now I know we've all seen them on TV - police strolling around the terminals with machine guns hung around their necks makes us all feel very secure!

But close up in the bus station, I could observe them for real.

Two came strolling along, machine guns slung around their necks, just like TV.

I thought: "Whoow, this is big time."

However, at the same time I had to go to the nearby sandwich shop for a couple of baguettes, armed with an 'arm and a leg' to pay for them.

The shop was packed. I joined the queue, only to be surprised to find the two armed officers, like myself, jammed up to their necks in baguettes and starved people, chatting away happily as if they, too, were off to Weymouth.

Once on the coach and jammed on the M25, I could not help ponder the thought - if the terrorist had struck there and then, would the officer, rather like Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army, call out and say: "I say, would you all mind awfully, if you could all lay down, rather flat, so we can take a pot-shot at the terrorists, who all look rather like you and are running for departures. Thank you so much, you're all so very kind."

TONY O'GORMAN Main Street Hethe Bicester