I'M not the only one disgusted by the action of stroppy dealers who haunt car boot sales.

An Hindsford woman tells me she has experienced the same impolite treatment that I did last week.

She explains that while working at a local day centre she and a colleague were fund-raising with a sale to take some disabled people on holiday.

The dealers knew they were genuine because several of their wheelchair users were present, but they later saw a lot of their stuff on other stalls at much inflated prices.

She says: "I've visited many car boot sales since and these people are still making a nice living. They pounce on the novices and grab all the best stuff.

"Some say good luck to them if they're prepared to get up at the crack of dawn to nab it."

I do, that's the name of the game, but they've such bare-faced cheek.

The mum also tells me that her daughter and fiance decided to organise a couple of sales while saving for their wedding and she warned them about the bullies.

She says the couple treated the behaviour as a joke at first, but they soon became sickened by the greed -- people haggling over 10p items. They do, they do. You can't believe it.

At the last sale they did at Leigh Miners there were so many tight wads that the woman on the next stall said she couldn't stand their behaviour and was going home. She gave all her stuff to her daughter, who also packed up soon afterwards, and gave the remaining goods to a cancer charity.

Thanks, Mrs Turner, I hope too that any boot newcomers take heed of my code not to let dealers poke about in their cars or boxes and to send them away until the stall is set up, so that the true collectors too can have a fair chance at what's on offer.