WHAT a relief. I may not be an irresponsible, incapable, feckless wimp after all.

According to Dr Brendon Burchell of Cambridge University I'm just sick. I've got a new illness he's discovered, called "financial phobia". And I've got it bad.

Sufferers are usually women. Otherwise sane and well-adjusted, we are gripped with anxiety when confronted with bank statements or anything else to do with finances.

That is why, rather humiliatingly, when I rang up Nat West in Darlington recently to order some cheques I flunked the bank's standard security check. In fact, my score was so low it was ungraded. When the man asked me for some basic information - like how much was in our current or deposit account, what was our overdraft limit and what other accounts and direct debits we have - my answer was always the same. "Sorry, don't know."

Pathetically, I haven't looked at a letter from the bank for about 11 years, ever since I gave up full-time work to raise children. Anything to do with money terrifies me because, not bringing in a regular wage, I feel it's totally beyond my control.

And who can blame me? Anything financial I did try to get involved with - such as taking out an endowment mortgage or a pension - totally baffled me and was destined to end in disaster. None of it made any sense. How come millions of us are paying building societies heaps of money over 25 years only to end up in debt at the end of it? And why do we take out pensions that cost nearly as much as our mortgages, with no promise of any definite return?

We have watched in horror as the value of pension funds - not to mention other investment accounts linked to stocks and shares - has plummeted. Still, the Government urges us to continue paying out a fortune to receive a pittance in old age.

Is it any wonder so many of us - about nine million apparently - can't face getting to grips with our finances? Although it's reassuring to know I'm not alone and that my ignorance can be excused, on medical grounds, I'm not sure the doctor's got it quite right.

He says we are suffering from a "phobia". This suggests our fears are irrational. But I think my reaction to the current state of our financial markets and institutions makes perfect sense. It's those poor souls who don't suffer from Dr Burchell's "financial phobia" I worry about. Aren't they the ones who are really ill?

ANYONE who watched the interview with Michael Jackson on TV this week will have been left in little doubt that the man is deeply disturbed. Any 44-year-old who enjoys sleepovers in his bedroom with young boys should not be allowed, unsupervised, near anyone's children. Some may put his bizarre behaviour - as, indeed, he has done himself - down to his own troubled childhood. But he is the adult now and it is his warped vision of the world that will similarly scar his own children, whom he treats as little more than playthings. If the public continues to indulge Jackson now, will Bashir be returning in 20 years' time to interview the damaged products of this upbringing? And who will be to blame then?