A NEW and deadly monster is born, to ravage an unsuspecting world” booms the trailer of the 1940 Boris Karloff film Black Friday.

Eighteen years later Arthur Seaton, the angry young man in Alan Sillitoe’s novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning recalled the film. Why call it “black” Friday, he asks? Last November the answer was revealed – because of all the black eyes.

On Black Friday in North London, people were reported “behaving like animals” as they fought and shoved over discounted electrical goods. Two people ended up in court after a brawl over a 32” TV.

Tesco in Manchester was “like a war zone.” Police were called amid reports of crushing, disorder and disputes. “Don’t get stroppy with me or I’ll smash your face in” screamed one of three men arrested that night.

I have to ask, in the midst of all that mayhem, whether anyone actually needs a 32” TV?

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with wanting a 32” television. I want one. But how can any civilised person desire one so badly that they are willing to shed blood on the floor of a supermarket?

I get that it’s a luxury item. I know you get a few quid off. But drive home, and switch on the news. Take a good look at yourself when they broadcast the CCTV footage.

Five years ago, when Black Friday was first marketed in UK, the craze was confined to online shopping. Amazon, who introduced it, reported 64 orders per second at peak times last year. So far, so good.

It is only Black Friday’s transition into retail outlets that confirms my bleakest suspicion. That politeness, as a national characteristic, is on its way out.

This is not a new concern. A 1947 British Pathé film shows shop workers on a “back to politeness drive.” But I bet they were polite compared to the people filmed 12 months ago, thrusting and grabbing appliances from each others’ hands.

Of course, most people in shops this Friday will be the picture of politeness. It will be the same in America. Because although Black Friday is blamed on the Americans who invented it, you can’t blame them for the indignity of the scenes described above, any more than you could if you spilled a can of coke down your jeans.

Approaching Black Friday 2015, what pains me most is the thought of people in other European countries seeing us as we really are.

Among the national characteristics that ground us as decent sorts are our politeness, our fondness for tea, our stiff upper lip, and our ability to form an orderly queue.

It may be nonsense. But it makes us come across better than images of gluttony in retail parks. My goal of living in a land of quaint hedgerows and village post offices may be unobtainable. But forming an orderly queue to get there would be a good start.