Have mobile phones made us forget how to make conversation? - Sarah Todd

Reflecting on it later, it would be interesting to know if this could be taken as a glimpse into the future; a time when care homes for the elderly will be chatter-free. Rather than reminiscing over cups of tea, there will be silence as aged fingers are swiped over screens.

Has all the slack-jawed hunching over mobile phones finally spawned a species of human that has none of the skills necessary to make conversation?

Thinking about it, it’s not just hair salons that are experiencing this phenomenon. Now, as a customer of a certain age, giggling with garage mechanics was bound to ease off a bit. But watching them in action with younger customers, there just doesn’t seem to be the same ebb-and-flow of conversation.

Flirting aside, many of the new generation in overalls don’t even seem to have any chat about mundane motoring matters such as miles per gallon and whether winter tyres are worth it.

Drive by a building site at sandwich time and rather than having a bit of a natter, all the younger workers will be silently checking their phones. Same in any industry, even farming. Modern tractor cabs seem to be almost entirely staffed by the SnapChat brigade.

A recent bereavement is perhaps responsible for this melancholic mood. One of our cats was run over and it seemed to somehow symbolise our changing countryside.

First and foremost, whoever hit it hadn’t stopped and put it to the side of the road or made any effort to find its owner.

Yes, the rose-tinted spectacles have been well and truly dusted off over the last few days, recalling a time when we knew almost everybody who drove down the stretch of road near us.

Any trip to the nearby village was punctuated with waving at familiar faces.

Donkeys years ago a capable teenager used to come and ride a young pony down the road for us and she always had her little dog running loose along the footpath next to her. Nowadays you’d never dare take a just-broken horse along this road. The traffic is just too fast.

Commuters are dashing off to catch trains, school-run mothers should learn to set off ten minutes earlier and others are cutting through because, wait for it, the satellite navigation app on their mobile phones has recommended this rural road as a time-saving route.

The children used to regularly ride their ponies home from the village school. Sometimes we’d tie them up outside the pub and nip in for a bag of crisps. That just wouldn’t be possible today because of the number of cars parked up.

Today country pubs, or inns as many seem to rebrand themselves, are all about attracting the diners. A clientele who are guided by online reviews and books via websites from their phones.

From about the age of eight our offspring rode their bikes by themselves the mile into the local village. They had baskets on the front, filled with boxes of eggs to deliver to the type of villager that gave them sweets and saw them safely back on their way home.

Dwelling on the cat’s demise, a thought struck that the only people you ever see on bikes these days are men of a certain age head-to-toe in Lycra. No passing the time of day, just whizzing by with their heads down.

As an aside, why do they ride in the countryside when they are going too fast to see it? They might as well be on a circular track around the back of an industrial estate.

Of course, modern parents probably won’t dare let their children out on bikes for fear they’d come a cropper. Please let it be this, rather than them being sat on phones and not wanting to be outdoors.

The Daughter found the cat while she was riding her horse out before work. She had the nag in one hand and the dead cat in the other and still nobody slowed down. Bet whoever ran it over was checking their phone and didn’t realise.