‘We should retaliate against fly-tippers’
The Daily Mail is not my favourite newspaper.
Its anti-GM stance blatantly panders to the non-scientific tendency in society and is chiefly responsible for the ridiculous situation in which our industry finds itself, with British scientists leading the research while British farmers (and consumers) are denied the opportunity to benefit.
But it’s is not all bad and I approve of its campaign to clean up the country in this Jubilee year.
It’s not the first to try it, of course. The Campaign to Protect Rural England, under president Bill Bryson, launched a similar initiative to stop fly tipping a few years ago, although I confess I haven’t noticed much improvement hereabouts. Our field gateways are still dumping grounds for too many local people and we have to clean up behind the filthy beasts.
It’s not a new problem, however. It’s just got worse in recent years. I remember my late father complaining bitterly about litter and worse in gateways many years ago. On one occasion he sorted through boxes of papers tipped near his house and discovered most of them were addressed to one man who lived on the edge of Norwich, five miles away. He reasoned this was the dumper and that he was stupid as well as irresponsible to have left so much evidence of his guilt.
At the time, father was magistrate and chairman of the local bench. He collected the litter, took it to the police station with which he was associated and asked the senior officer to prosecute. But despite father’s role as a magistrate the officer refused. His reason was that the name and address on the papers was circumstantial evidence only and that as my father had not actually seen the stuff being dumped it could not be said with certainty who had left it.
Father was forced to accept the situation because he knew the officer was legally justified. But he decided to take the law into his own hands. He drove to the address on the papers, took them all out of his car and tipped them beside the front door. Then he knocked on the door and when the householder answered, checked his name, which was the same as that on the papers, and pointing to the pile in the front garden, told him he was returning his property.
The culprit stood open-mouthed as father returned to his car and drove away. Suffice to say, we didn’t find any more litter obviously from the same source.
Such action would probably be frowned upon these days and father could have been in trouble even back then. But hopefully the litter lout learned his lesson and thought twice about despoiling the countryside again. And sometimes it’s worth taking the risk of provoking fly-tipping rage by retaliating against the guilty. Full marks to BBC radio newsreader, Alice Arnold, for throwing a plastic bottle back into somebody’s car after it had been thrown out of the window. We need more public-spirited people to take such a stand.
But how sad that so many people in this country have lost any pride they ever had in how it looks.
In Holland a few weeks ago it was noticeable that there was a virtual absence of litter along roadside verges. The Dutch are obviously proud of their country. Would that something similar could be re-established here. It would be wonderful for all of us who love our countryside as well as for the Queen in her 60th year on the throne.
David Richardson farms about 400ha (1,000 acres) of arable land near Norwich in Norfolk in partnership with his wife, Lorna. His son, Rob, is farm manager.