By now, the turmoil in the world's financial markets is old news. Traders, businesspeople and sole investors may have been jittery by the US sub-prime mortgage market crisis and its implication for our economy on these shores. Not to mention the Northern Rock problems that struck fear into the hearts of most people who had anything of worth invested in the building society.

Despite the constant reassurances from financial analysts than we were not in fact experiencing a deja-vu of Black Monday 20 years ago, panic was rife. Panic was still rife despite the government's encouragement that all saving up to the value of £30,000 were absolutely insured.

But now it seems, traders, businesspeople and ordinary investors alike can breathe a heavy and hearty sigh of relief, as it seems the economy is witnessing it very own version of the early so-called Brown bounce.

According to the latest official reports, the UK economy grew much faster than originally expected over the last three months and is at its fastest annual rate in more than three year. More than three years!

This seems almost a galaxy away from the fears and palpitations that were brought on by the market turmoil earlier in the year. The way some people were going, you would think we were on the verge of the economic equivalent of the apocalypse. And Gordon Brown and his Whitehall economic officials were the dark horsemen.

But many - myself included - can now sleep well at night knowing that our assets and saving are not at risk.

The Office for National Statistics reported that the economy grew by 0.8 per cent in the third quarter, above previous estimates for a slowdown to 0.7 per cent from 0.8 per cent in the second quarter of the year. This took the annual rate from 3.1 per cent to 3.3 per cent in the second quarter, which was again, well about City forecasts. Amazingly, this was the strongest rate since the second quarter of 2004 – all of this despite the recent financial uncertainty.

Even the high street it seems, has enjoyed a strong and robust rate of growth even in the face of higher interest rates and a world-wide credit crunch which had initially sparked fears among economic speculators that the economy would slow down.

I read in the business section of the Guardian this morning Jonathan Loynes atCapital Economic say: "The first estimate of UK GDP in Q3 confirms that the economy has retained plenty of momentum over recent months.

"The strong starting point confirmed by these figures – coupled with the monetary policy committee's view that the economy needs to slow to keep inflation on target – supports our view that the committee will be in no great rush to cut interest rates."

Well bang goes my hope that the Bank of England would al least cut interest rates in a bid to encourage more spending and borrowing to re-ignite the economy. Lower interest rates was perhaps the only silver lining around the dark prospect of economic downturn, but I think it's safe to say we can sacrifice fairly high interest rates for a robust economy, free from the volatility and insecurity of recent months.