Paper used to be a burglar’s dream

LIKE the proverbial bad penny I’m back again!

The editor asked me to take a couple of weeks off and when I saw the dates it occurred to me that the absence would coincide with what used to be the “Hinckley fortnight” when all the hosiery and knitwear factories, which provided much of the employment in the area, would be closed.

They were different times then when if you lost your job on a Friday you could walk into another the week after.

Not only that, there was no data protection then and this newspaper became like a burglar’s black book. Starved of the people who would usually provide the news and happenings, there were pages of photos of families at the bus and railway stations, off on coach tours or letting the train take the strain at a time when few flew away to foreign resorts expensive.

The captions underneath would read something like: “Mr and Mrs Smith of Northfield Road with son John and daughter Janet off to Blackpool for two weeks”.

All that was missing was the house number but it was still rich pickings for thieves who had time to choose when to strike.

The only similarity between then and now was what are now referred to as “staycations” but that word had never been heard of in those days. Some shearing!

Those of you who have seen me since the last time this column appeared will know that I duly had my hair cut.

I say cut but it was, partly of necessity I admit, more like a shearing and when she began I thought the stylist - different to the one I usually have- had done part as air fares were of her training at an Aussie sheep station as she swept the clippers up purposefully.

At one stage the face visor she was wearing steamed up and she switched to a mask but much of the cutting had been done by then which might explain why I came out looking like a neater version of the collie in a Specsavers’ ad!

Seriously, a more likely explanation is that I told her my sister in law thought I look younger with a longer style but I said I preferred it shorter. It can’t be too bad as I made another appointment for six weeks later when I suspect little will need to be done other than tidying it up.

Avian alarm

Where I live there are loads of cats around of differing sizes and colours but, like a lot of people these past few months I have delighted in the songs and activities of birds and although it is nature I have set myself up as an avian alarm when see one particular moggy.

The black and white puss had obviously noticed a blackbird had nested in a bush over a neighbour’s fence and would lie in wait under the shrubs on my side and when I saw it would scare it off as I believe blackbirds’ lives matter. In fact all lives matter.

Sadly I was unable to intervene on one occasion when I saw said cat stalking its prey but no sign of a bird!

Then I noticed movement across part of my lawn, a tiny creature hopping madly to escape its pursuer but the newly developed froglet from the neighbours’ pond was run to ground near the house.

I