As a child, I played with friends in the street all the time - a very narrow dead end of 16 houses. In the winter it was mainly football, with the gateposts to a driveway as the goal; in the summer it was cricket, bowling at a lamppost set against someone's garden wall.

When we felt really imaginative, that same stretch of pavement became a battleship where we would act out desperate war scenes - this was 60 years ago - or a fort to be defended against marauding "Injuns".

Niggling exchanges with neighbours happened all the time - particularly ones who were older and grumpier or, especially, house (and garden) proud.

As well as tensions of the "can we please have our ball back mister?" variety, there was a constant drip-drip of complaints about our shrieking or staying out past our bedtimes. Under strict parental orders never to answer back, when pressure really built up I got instructed only to play in front of my own house.

Looking back, I realise that what framed these neighbourly discontents was an assumption, entirely taken for granted, that though they were played out in a semi-public arena, they were private matters to be resolved by the families themselves. Our street antics might on occasions lead to a temporary or even long-lasting falling out between two households.

It never occurred to anyone, though, to think that they needed the police or the local council to "heavy up" on the local kids.

Of course, I accept that today some of what attracts anti-yob complaints is much more damaging for local residents, including other young people, than our innocent ball games and war games ever were.

But on the back of the legislative frameworks that have been created to deal with this tiny minority, a culture has developed that legitimises the conversion of private adult irritation with the young's noisiness and energy into a high-profile public - and indeed legal - issue.

As a result, any neighbour who feels grumpy towards children or thinks that the family across the street is lowering the tone of the area now has the right (and knows it) to call in powerful agencies to enforce their view of the world.

And, as one youth worker put it recently: "When a councillor rings up my boss and says that kids have been seen on the streets of x or y estate, the one answer you're not allowed to give is: so what?"

- Got something to say in Soapbox? steve.barrett@haynet.com or 020 8267 4707.