Why speaking up makes us a more courageous and moral society

On a beach or at a club it might have looked all right, but the young woman wearing hipsters and mini top was dealing with nerve-racked people about to give evidence in an employment tribunal.

I was there as a reporter and should perhaps have kept my head down - instead I complained.

The outcome was a revelation and convinced me that if more of us spoke up about the slipping of standards in public life, we could help make our country a more pleasant place.

This month, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a £13.7million package to help English schools teach manners.

But good manners once permeated society. Parents knew it was their job to instil them, churches reinforced the need for ethical behaviour and neighbours felt entitled to tick off little Johnny if he misbehaved in the street.

Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, calls this the 'adult alliance' which Britain needs urgently to rebuild. And we should – because it works.

To return to the tribunal: I spotted two court officials, a middle-aged man and woman, and told them I thought the girl's clothing inappropriate.

They agreed and suggested I write a complaint. I did so and expected to hear no more.

But a few minutes later a young manager called me into his office and thanked me profusely.

He explained that both the staff lawyers had expressed concern about standards of dress, but they had been waiting for a complaint from a member of the public; now they had one so something could at last be done.

It is easy to feel we might be the only ones who mind certain things, but we rarely are.

I have often intervened in public in tense situations. I am not brave, nor particularly strong, and I'm often not even particularly nice.

But my dad was a policeman, my schools were Catholic and my mum was from a poor, but decent, culture where people mucked in.

The interventions I've made have always helped, and I have never been hit.

Even bullies sometimes have a conscience, and speaking up often encourages others to stick up for what is right.

Of course, you have to pick your fights carefully – and it can be easier for women to defuse potential violence.

On a train recently, I witnessed three strapping teenage girls subjecting a hapless ticket inspector to violent abuse.

When he asked for their tickets, one blocked his path and threatened to pluck out his eye and eat it: "You just picking on us 'cos of how we is dressed," she snarled.

They were black South London girls – and everyone else on this train rolling through Surrey was white and suddenly buried in their newspapers.

I felt so sorry for the poor man that I piped up before I could even think.

I turned it into a joke about how inspectors always assumed my daughter was dishonest because she was young – and thought I must be honest because I'm middle-aged: "Now girls, isn't that something to look forward to? So give the guy a break, he's just doing his job."

The fight went out of them and one girl said: "That was brave of you. We could have had knives."

That possibility had never even occurred to me.

Much aggression cannot easily be understood or calmed. But if we think carefully and resist traditional British reserve, we can still help.

Not long ago, outside a park, I saw a huge, enraged man dragging a little girl of about four. He had her by the arm and she was sobbing and screaming for her mum.

Nearly everyone in the street paused and looked back, alarmed. But no one did anything: we felt paralysed, by fear as well as indecision.

Was this angry giant abducting her or 'just' an angry dad?

I felt certain that, once a door closed on this child, she would be horribly beaten. Yet I too walked on.

At the end of the road, I remembered Blake Morrison's thought-provoking book As If, about the abduction and murder of toddler Jamie Bulger in Liverpool in 1993.

No fewer than 38 adults testified at the trial of the two ten-year-old boys eventually convicted of this terrible crime that they had seen them beat and drag the crying child through the streets.

Only one woman stopped and questioned them.

So I turned back, and decided to protect myself by enlisting the help of another passer-by. I found a strong-looking workman and together we followed the pair.

When the man reached an alley and shoved the girl through a gate, he spotted us. He shot after us, his big fists balled to punch. We ran.

But the workman had seen the number on the gate and I told the police.

An officer visited the house and rang me a couple of hours later.

The man was the child's father but, the policeman said, already 'well known' to police – yes, he hinted, for crimes of violence.

I had done the right thing and social services had been alerted.

Film critic Barry Norman said this week, following a survey on declining manners in cinemas, that the likes of teens chatting on mobiles during films would soon shut up if, instead of one person challenging them, 200 did.

We also need the return of ushers, park keepers, train guards, station staff and bus conductors: their numbers have been slashed in recent years even though they add enormously to public safety and manners.

Meanwhile, however, there's us. There have been times in my life when I have been immensely touched by the care of strangers.

So let's speak up, remembering there's more of Us than Them.