I've been to the canal centre of Braunston in Northamptonshire today by bus. I tried it last summer at the height of the driver shortage and had to abandon the attempt when one service was cancelled. Earlier this week I looked at the timetables again and found that Braunston now enjoys an hourly service from Northampton, so off I went.
It's a lovely village and, as there is really of historic narrow boats this weekend, there was even more to photograph than usual on the canal. I have good memories of Braunston more than 50 years ago and some family snaps to go with them, so they will probably turn up here too.
And I found a tin tabernacle and connections with two of my favourite writers, so there will be plenty to blog about.
But for today, let's return to Oakham and two pairs of substantial semi-detached houses I came across last Friday. As the badge shows, they were provided to officers in the Rutland force.
You get the feeling that constables were expected to be fat and jolly with lots of children in those days. I met one of the last of that breed when I took part in a (very good humoured) demonstration against opencast coal mining in what is now Andrew Bridgen country at the end of the last century.
He accompanied us on our march (it was more of a ramble, to be honest) and his advice before we set off was: "If you start any trouble, just run. I'll never catch you."
And when a local councillor was invited to say "a few words", he treated us to a loud aside: "If she does say a few words, it'll be the first time."
Now that's what I call community policing, though it was exceeded by the PC (a friend of our victorious candidate) who took it upon himself to ring Tony Greaves with the result of a local by-election because he had decided we were all too drunk from celebrating.
2 comments:
Police Houses, Nurses homes, School Caretakers homes, Forces housing - all things sold off by both Conservative and Labour politicians over the decades to raise a quick buck to avoid having to raise taxes.
We are in one hell of a mess.
I remember a local by election about 30 years ago when the three important decisions to be made by the local party were 1) who was going to be the candidate, 2) who was going to be the agent, and 3) who would have the privilege of phoning Tony Greaves with the result. The latter was regarded as akin to an award in some sort of Lib Dem Honours System. (And I got it!)
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