Imagine you are going on a shopping expedition. It is a fine sunny day, the birds are singing and all is well with your world.

You start putting together all you need for a foray into the great metropolis (Brighton, for the purposes of the exercise). You check you have your shopping list, your shopping bag, your car keys, your money.

Ah! there's the snag - you realise you have almost run out of the readies and you have bills to pay as well as shopping to get. However, that should not be a problem since your bank is in Brighton and you know you are solvent.

It just requires a small detour before you get stuck into the real work of food shopping, coffee drinking - you know what I mean.

You get to the bank and manage to park. That in itself is a wonderful bonus and you wander into the bank in a happy mood, not in the least put off by the long queue.

Unfortunately you find on checking that you have not, on this occasion, got your cash card with you, which would enable you to bypass the queue, but no matter, all is otherwise well with your little world and that welcome cup of coffee is coming nearer by the minute.

A warning bell should have rung in your head. Your innocent mood of quiet satisfaction is about to be shattered. You put your credit card down before the bank clerk and ask for your desired sum.

A pause and then a voice says: "No, I'm afraid I can't serve you."

What has happened? Is it a change of shift for the clerks? Have you foolishly produced an out-of-date bank card? Your euphoric mood is shattered.

"What do you mean, you can't serve me?"

"I don't recognise you" is the somewhat odd response.

Silly me, I thought that was what your bank card was for, to establish your bona fides. The conversation then moves into the realm of the surreal. Had I got my passport? No, I don't have my passport about my person when shopping in my own town. A utilities bill perhaps? No, same answer.

OK, no identification, no money.

I offered another cheque book and other cash cards. Still a firm "no". By now the queue was riveted. Better than Coronation Street any day.

Could I recognise any member of staff? Could any member of staff recognise me? Probably but I was in no mood for a scene from The Bill.

Eventually one of the clerks was rash enough to walk furtively across the back of the counter and nod her head in recognition and the money tap was reluctantly turned back on.

Now all this may sound very amusing in retrospect but I was considerably less than amused. I have banked with this bank since the late Forties and this branch since the early Seventies and have never been asked for further identification before.

They have never refused to take my money or queried any transaction. The clerk told me it was because of the increase in bank card fraud but I hardly think an elderly lady with a walking stick is going to turn out to be Osama bin Laden in disguise.

If this is going to be the pattern for the future then the bank should write to every customer telling them they will be expected to have special identification on each visit before the bank will do business with them.

I do not want the ability to draw funds to depend on a bank clerk with 20-20 vision and a good memory - or a very public shouting match.