To Hell with the Health & Safety Executive!

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It’s Sunday, and among the joys of living in England is to hear the church bells ringing and to look up at the tower clock to check the time.

Most English church tower clocks are quite old and the one at St. Michael’s church in Helston was installed in the 18th century. Doubtless, the church elders are very proud of their clock, They must be because three times a week a man climbs the tower and an eight-foot ladder to wind the clock mechanism, something which has been done since 1793.

But the civil servants in the Health and Safety Executive, who have likely not done anything more risky than putting their mouths to hot cups of tea paid for by the taxpayers, have advised that the job could be dangerous.

And so the diocese of Truro is forced to stop the clock temporarily and are now trying to raise £5,500 for an automatic clock-winder to replace the man who has been doing the job.

I reckon that since 1793 someone has climbed that tower and a similar ladder around 34,000 times. Does that indicate a dangerous practice? I don’t think so!

To Hell with the Health & Safety Executive!
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How Sad!

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Among all the stories of death and disaster in the Sunday papers was a reference to a Marchwood man who slaughtered his cockerel following complaints by neighbours to the New Forest Council who issued him with a Noise Abatement Order with a possible £5,000 fine if he ignored it.

The story struck me for two reasons. Firstly, because I lived in Marchwood for a time and much enjoyed the peace and quiet of the village and its proximity to the New Forest which I used to explore early in the mornings. And secondly because it was a reminder that, in reality, it is us that encroach upon the animal world; it is they who were here first.

You read these stories regularly in the papers and they usually involve the impact that rural things have on the ever-encroaching affairs of people. Church bells, rung for centuries for example, have to be silenced because they disturb the sleep of folk who have built houses close to them. Boarding kennels that were once isolated and are now a noise nuisance to the estates that have been built on top of them. Killer roads which are driven across the age-old invisible paths of badgers and deer. There are many such stories.

And roosters doing their natural thing and, sadly, destined to have their necks wrung because of it.
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