Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

Have you ever looked at his feet? They’re ludicrous — absurd!

And the way he constantly sniffles and snuffles into that voluminous red hankie like some chronically hyperactive bloodhound… Unbearable!

As a point of interest, what is this curious malady he always seems to be suffering from? So far as I can tell it changes every week! Gluten intolerance? Hay fever? Something viral? The clap? Heaven only knows (or cares, more to the point)!

Whenever he pays a visit to The Old Hall, I get Tamm to stand guard over the ceramics. He collects Staffordshire figures, I believe, and always heads straight for the big display cabinet in the corner of our ‘formal’ lounge, where he drools and gibbers, inarticulately, over our prized Majolica, his massive, clumsy white hands flailing through the air like a couple of poisoned doves in the final throes of agony.

And those mournful looks! Those strange, watery grey eyes — like a pair of suffocating squid trapped inside a greasy bowl full of slowly congealing albumen. Repulsive! In truth, I’d sooner have him shot and mounted than do business with the wretch (and I think it would be kinder . He’s certainly beyond ‘fixing’).

At least Everill — for all his unbearable arrogance and his smugness — has a measure of vitality about him, even if he never bothers putting it to any kind of positive use (you’ve probably already heard the rumours about his actual behaviour during the ‘Great Conflagration’ at Tilton Mill? Apparently, according to my source — who’s utterly reliable — rather than ‘staying behind and risking his life’ to save that fabled ‘disabled woman’ during the fire, he was trapped inside the storeroom with her, very much against his will.

In fact he reportedly tried to use the back of her chair to scramble up on to the ledge of a high window and make his escape, but the buckle on his belt became entangled in her hair…

They took her to hospital afterwards, not for ‘smoke inhalation’ — WG , 12/08/06 — but because she needed stitches in her scalp after he ripped out a sizable chunk of it in his urgent desire to ‘do a runner’. Now I hear he’s even to be awarded some kind of public honour for his troubles! What a joke!).

The second piece of preventative action I’ve taken (and this was on Don — Dan — Derek’s — advice) was to compile a permanent photographic record — an ‘unofficial archive’, if you like — of all the manhole covers in Burley Cross (over ninety, in total! Ninety-three, to be exact).

I completed this task last week, and must say that the whole process has been a real ‘eye-opener’ for me. I honestly had no idea how incredibly ornate and beautiful some of these metal covers are! As I believe I said in my last email, it would be difficult to calculate how great a cultural loss the theft of these ‘individual pieces’ might be to the village. They are a vital and precious part of our increasingly fragile heritage.

To head off on a slight tangent for a moment: I was surfing the web the other night and came across an Art Website (I duplicate their capital letters with a distinct sense of irony) called ‘Ruavista’ (simply go to ‘manhole cover theft’ on Wikipedia and then follow the ‘signposts’) who have a whole collection of manhole covers on show in their ‘virtual gallery’. They call them ‘symbols of the Industrial Revolution’, and say how they ‘offer living testimony to the industrial artistry of the second half of the nineteenth century’.

Pretentious waffle, for the most part (of course), but I became so excited by the overall concept that I actually sent them an email enclosing a couple of my own photographs to display online (I have yet to see them up there), and this, in turn, spurred me on to thinking about creating my own website — to showcase the wonderful selection of covers in BC (with a brief history of the town included etc.) — so that people from other parts of Britain, and the world, might get to share in this wonderful, hidden bounty of ours.

I then became slightly paranoid about advertising these precious wares in public, lest I might inadvertently encourage some thuggish vandal from Shanghai or Beijing to fly over and swipe them! (It’s a delicate balance, I suppose, between one’s natural pride and showing the necessary restraint such circumstances demand.)

For the record, I’ve even considered approaching Taschen — who I know will publish any old rubbish — with the outline for a book on the subject (all proceeds to the BCPC. If only I could actually find the time to throw together a quick proposal for them…).

My third initiative has been to reach out some tentative ‘feelers’ to the local press. I’ve contacted Trevor Ruddle at the WG (on the downside, he’s a blathering idiot — as I’m sure you’re only too well aware. On the up, he’s like an eager little puppy — pathetically easy to enthuse, chastise and direct).

I’ve said nothing concrete to him on the subject (as yet), but have endeavoured to tantalize him with a little taster. I also took the liberty of mentioning your name in relation to the issue (I hope you won’t object).

I don’t think there’s any question that publicity is the key, here, but we’ll obviously need to be extremely careful about both our approach and our timing. We can’t risk generating an atmosphere of fear or panic — especially among the elderly and more vulnerable segments of the community.

Another factor worth bearing in mind is the serious risk — in the current, fraught political climate — of engendering ‘emotional burn-out’ among members of the public, who, in a place so full of precious heritage as Wharfedale, can sometimes tend to feel somewhat overwhelmed by the weight of responsibility its general upkeep entails.

On this basis, I think it’s probably for the best if we just sit quietly on the issue over Christmas and then reconvene in the New Year — revitalized and refreshed, with any luck! — to forge a more coherent and detailed plan of action together.

I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Wishing you all the best of the season, in the meantime.

Yours Sincerely,

Baxter Thorndyke

PS While I have your ear — and bearing in mind your extensive background in Town Planning — I wonder whether I might quickly seek some advice from you about the nefarious activities of one of your constituents, a woman by the name of Beatrix (née ‘Bunny’) Seymour?

She lives at 1 Fa’weather Cottages, on the outskirts of BC (to the due south of the village, if you’re having trouble remembering it).

These cottages, you may well recall, were the main group of properties in BC to be affected by the building of the bypass seven years ago. There are three of them, in total, (although — for the record — I’ve always been a little sceptical about whether they’re even entirely within the BC ‘catchment area’. This is, I must confess, as much an emotional boundary as a geographical one on my part, since they’re situated so far down the moor and aren’t remotely ‘in keeping’ with the architectural atmosphere of the rest of the village).

It recently came to my attention, however (during the course of a small survey I was conducting on behalf of the BCPC), that Bea Seymour has actually undertaken some fairly major renovations to her property over the past eighteen months or so. The chief one of these was the demolition of an old outside toilet and brick wall to the rear of the cottage to make room for the addition of a modest conservatory on the back of the property (a move that I was unable to oppose in council because, by a cruel twist of fate, I was on an extended vacation to Tibet with my wife, Tammy, when permission was requested — and subsequently granted — for it).