We travelled back from one of our regular trips to York to visit Mrs Molineaux’s youngest.

The usual purpose of these visits is to either shop or help to fix something that is urgently required by our university student daughter.

Invariably our journeys home are punctuated by stops for either cups of coffee or visits to the toilet; one of course fuelling the need for the other.

We arrived at a fast-food chain to fulfil the latter of our requirements and noticed a sign in the corridor leading to the toilet doors. It informed us that the facilities were for ‘customer use only’.

We stopped for a moment, wondering whether we should continue on in, as we weren’t intending spending any money there.

Then it occurred to me; we are customers of this particular company and have been for more than 25 years. The sign didn’t stipulate that a transaction needed to be made during that visit.

And, as I pointed out to my wife, we were about to spend a penny.

When we returned to the car we spoke about how the sign made us feel and whether it expressed one of the problems with a consumer society.

We were, in fact, left feeling like a commodity when in fact we had spent a significant amount of money with them. I recalled several other places that had displayed similar signs in order to stop the public using their toilets without buying food. Not long ago, we went with some friends to a local pub for a spot of lunch. The food was adequate and the place was clean, but there was a negativity that I couldn’t put my finger on until now. Not only did they have a toilet sign, as above, but they also seemed put out when I asked for a glass of tap water for Mrs M. Perhaps this kind of attitude is a leftover from the bad old days of British customer service when shopkeepers tended to frown at children. I remember being told off by the local chip shop owner for wanting curry sauce with my fish when I was around ten. She thought it was a disgusting idea and refused to serve me. Forty years later we live in a consumer society and so, technically, we are always customers. So, the next time you walk into a shop, pub or cafe to use the toilets while you are away from home and you see a sign that says ‘for customer use only’, remember that you are always a customer.