I GOT a severe shock when I visited my 92-year-old mum on Mother's Day. She is convinced the 'authorities' have her under surveillance as a possible IRA sympathiser or terrorist.

Now you may very well be laughing hysterically at the thought of a frail old woman, living on the second floor of a warden-controlled complex in Farnworth, being viewed as a threat to national security.

But the idea isn't all that daft when viewed in the context of the grannie figure, exposed towards the end of the 1990s as having been an agent provocateur who supplied highly sensitive, secret material to the Russians for donkey's years during the Cold War .

And something else I should point out. My mother may be 92 and unsteady on her feet, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with her mind. That is still sharp -- so any thoughts of a 'ga-ga' old lady fantasising about James Bond scenarios can be discounted straight away.

A few days ago, shortly after 7.30am, mother answered a knock at the door of her flat. She opened it to be confronted by two strapping young men, dressed in what she thought was police or military uniform.

They handed her a small package, posted in Northern Ireland, with the words: "Are you Mrs Ina Wynne Shawcross?" When she said she was, one of them added: "This is for you." They then left, leaving the package's bemused recipient wondering what the hell was going on.

The background to this incident may shed some light on what is now seen as a major, yet unexplained happening in my mother's uneventful, somewhat boring daily routine.

When my dad died 37 years ago, my mum went to live for a year or so with my brother Neil, an artist of international repute, who teaches at Belfast University. He married an Irish girl and has lived in Ulster for almost 40 years.

Ina made a number of friends in the province and the Republic, has exchanged letters with them over the years, and made several trips to stay with them and my brother.

She regularly receives little gifts, particularly from a young woman called Alison Shawcross, who is married to her grandson Aran. Both Aran and Alison, who have a young daughter, are university graduates with high profile jobs but, as far as I am aware, no particular political affiliations.

It was one such package which was delivered by the two young men. They were NOT postmen. He arrived 20 or so minutes AFTER they had left and the 'strange' coincidences don't end there. The parcel had been opened and resealed with Sellotape. It contained paper hankies and a little note. Nothing else. But there's more. No-one in my mother's complex has owned up to having admitted the two uniformed men, which is puzzling as the occupants have had it drilled into them NOT to open the front doors to anyone they do not know without calling the warden.

I must admit, I don't know what to make of all this. I've thought of calling the Royal Mail and asking if they can help, but it's hardly worth the bother as Alison uses the normal mail, not registered or recorded, to communicate with my mum.

Who were those two young men and why was my mother's mail tampered with? The obvious, if mind-numbing possibility, that someone considers my elderly mum could be a front for terrorist activity may not be as comic as I first thought.

Quite clearly the menace to national security posed by remnants of the republic movement is being taken very seriously. If this means that mail to and from Northern Ireland is being monitored, I supposed the address of anyone like my mum, who regularly receives packages from the province, could well be considered a conduit for bomb-making equipment.

I would have thought that terrorists could come up with a far more sophisticated method of transporting explosive devices but, hey, I'm not a terrorist. Nor is my mum. So if anyone from MI5 or MI6 is reading this, leave her alone. OK?