Burley Cross Postbox Theft. Nicola Barker
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– mainly at home – but ‘are not particularly confident in its usage’, and they are most likely to read the Sun and Mirror (but very rarely the Daily Mail or the Financial Times).52
EnCams have invented their own broad label to describe these irresponsible individuals: they call them ‘justifiers’, i.e. they justify their behaviour on the grounds of a) Ignorance (‘I didn’t realize it was a problem…’ ‘But nobody has ever mentioned this to me before etc.) and b) Laziness (‘But nobody else ever picks it up, so why should I?’).
EnCams insist that these ‘justifiers’ will only ever openly admit that they allow their dog to foul in public when placed under extreme duress. Their fundamental instinct is to simply pretend it hasn’t happened or to lie about it.
Although I cannot deny that this profile is both interesting and – I don’t doubt – perfectly valid in many – if not most – instances, TP was nevertheless entirely wrong to try and label me – of all people – with this wildly inappropriate nomenclature: I am neither ignorant, lazy nor in denial. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am informed, proactive and socially aware. And although I do dislike soaps,53 I very rarely go to the cinema,54 and my computer skills are – as this letter itself, I hope, will attest – universally acknowledged to be tip-top.
Since my acquisition of the EnCams document I have tried – countless times – to explain to TP (see Doc. 5 + Doc. 6: some valuable examples of our early correspondence) that not only am I a keen advocate of poop-scooping in residential areas and public parks, but that it shows absolutely no moral or intellectual inconsistency on my part to hold that allowing excrement to decompose naturally on the moor is infinitely more environmental than bagging it up and adding it, quite unthinkingly, to this small island’s already chronically over-extended quantities of landfill. I have also told her that by simply bagging up the faeces she finds and then dumping them, willy-nilly, she is only serving to exacerbate the ‘problem’55 because the excrement cannot be expected to decompose inside its plastic skin. Rather than helping matters she is actually making them infinitely worse – once bagged, the excrement is there forever: a tawdry bauble – a permanent, sordid testament to the involuntary act of physical evacuation!
As you will no doubt be aware, around two months ago Wharfedale’s dog warden – the ‘criminally over-subscribed’56 Trevor Horsmith – was persuaded57 to start to take an interest in the problems being generated by TP’s activities on the moor. It will probably strike you as intensely ironic that TP herself was one of the main instigators in finally involving Trevor in this little local ‘mess’ of ours.58
After familiarizing himself with the consequences of TP’s ‘work’ (on the moor and beyond59) Horsmith announced (I’m paraphrasing here60) that while he fully condoned – even admired!61 – TP’s desire to keep the moor clean, it was still perfectly legitimate for dog owners to allow their pets to defecate there, and that while excrement could not, in all conscience, be calibrated as ‘litter’ (it decomposes for heaven’s sake! Same as an apple core!) once it has been placed inside plastic (no matter how laudable the motivation62) then it must necessarily be considered so.63
Horsmith’s pronouncement on this issue was obviously the most devastating blow for TP (and her cause), yet it by no means prompted her to desist from her antisocial behaviour. By way of an excuse for (partial explanation of/attempt to distract attention from) her strange, nocturnal activities, she suddenly changed tack and began claiming (see Doc. 6 again, last three paras) that – for the most part – whenever she goes on walks she generally bags up the vast majority of the faeces she finds and disposes of them herself (‘double-wrapped’, she writes – somewhat primly – inside her dustbin, at home64) and that on the rare occasions when she leaves the bags behind it is either because a) the ‘problem’ (as she perceives it) is so severe that she feels a strong, public statement needs to be made to other dog owners, b) the sheer volume of excrement is such that it is simply too much for her to carry home all in one go (while managing a large dog at the same time), and c) that she is sometimes prey to the sudden onset of acute arthritic ‘spasms’ in her fingers, which mean that she is unable to grip the bags properly and so is compelled to leave them in situ, while harbouring ‘every earthly intention’ of returning to collect them at a later date.
I am not – of course – in any way convinced by this pathetic, half-cocked hodge-podge of explanations. In answer to a) I say that other dog owners are completely within their rights to allow their dogs to defecate responsibly on the moor. They have the law on their side. It is a perfectly legitimate and natural way to proceed. In answer to b) I say that the volume of excrement on the moor is rarely, if ever – in my extensive experience of these matters – excessive (especially given the general rate of decomposition etc.). In answer to c) I say that it strikes me as rather odd that the same person who can apparently manage to ‘bag up’ huge quantities of excrement when their fingers are – ahem – ‘spasming’65 is somehow unable to perform that superficially much less arduous act of transporting it back home with them!66
Many of TP’s bags lie around on the moor for months on end and no visible attempt is made to move them. Last Thursday, for example, I counted over forty-two bags of excrement dotted randomly about the place on my morning stroll. Sometimes I come across a bag displayed in the most extraordinary of places. Yesterday I found one dangling up high in the midst of a thorny bush. It was very obvious that not only would the person who hung the bag there have been forced to sustain some kind of injury in its display (unless they wore a thick pair of protective gloves), but that so would the poor soul (and here’s the rub!) who felt duty-bound to retrieve it and dispose of it.67 This was, in effect, a piece of purely spiteful behaviour – little less, in fact, than an act of social/ environmental terrorism.
Shoshana and I have both become so sickened, angered and dismayed by the awful mess TP has made of our local area (I mean who is to judge when an activity such as this passes from being ‘in the public interest’68 to a plain and simple public nuisance?69) that, in sheer desperation, we have begun to gather up the rotten bags ourselves.
On Friday, two weeks back70, Shoshana gathered up over thirty-six bags. On her way home – exhausted – from the village’s poop-scoop bins71 she tripped on a crack in the pavement, fell heavily, sprained her wrist and dislocated her collarbone. 72 I will not say that we blame TP entirely for this calamity, but we do hold her at least partially responsible.73
After Shoshana’s ‘accident’ I marched over to TP’s bungalow, fully intent on having it out with her,74 but TP (rather fortuitously) was nowhere to be found. It was then – as I stood impotently in her front garden, seething with frustration – that I resolved75 to