My corner of rants where ‘something must be done’

People quite often approach me to point out this and that aspect of our lives in Ashford that, they tell me, “something needs to be done about”. This almost always has to do with what they perceive as council shortcomings. I have often explained that I have no influence – all I can do is rant on about things here, at the top right-hand corner of page 11.

I would be happy to think that someone “up there” took some notice but I don’t, in my wildest dreams, imagine that they ever will.

Having said that, Cllr Graham Galpin did agree with me that if Saturday performers on the bandstand, endorsed by the council, were to be perceived as being more than casual buskers, some seating should be provided to create the effect of a performance and an audience.

The imminent descent into winter will doubtless put these performances – and some have been truly memorable – on hold for a few months.

A few days ago, I was approached by a gentleman who asked me to mention the appalling state of the public lavatories opposite Lidl. The floors, he said, were awash with urine and the basins filthy.

When I went to have a look in order to confirm what he had told me, I found the floors recently mopped and all else spotlessly clean. Perhaps I went on the wrong day.

Given the number of complaints about these conveniences, which have from time to time appeared on the letters page, I can only assume this to have been the case. The amusing thought crossed my mind that such places are, thanks to American prudery creeping into our language, often called “bathrooms” even here in call-aspade-a-spade England.

Mrs B tells me there have been a number of reports on Facebook recently about men approaching young children near Great Chart Primary School and other places, including some in Hythe. Statistically, very, very few children are actually abducted in Britain. Police figures indicate that only 7.4 children per 100,000 suffer this fate. This seems a very small number but for the parents, friends and any one of those children, the number is 100%.

Let us hope that vigilance and proper education about stranger danger will eventually produce a statistical probability of none per million.

‘I found the floors mopped and all else clean. Perhaps I went on the wrong day’