Strangely traditional events, Saxon peasant defying the Norman authorities with a bow and arrows stashed in the thatch...
People disapprove of Martin shooting those gypsies, but one can't help feeling a certain sympathy. The police weren't helping him. Farmers really hate things being stolen because their profession means they have to leave valuable tools and machinery all over the place night and day. They see theft as taking unfair advantage, which it is of course.
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Oh I don't have a particular problem with him shooting the burglars per se. It is/was his attitude to that and other acts and his behaviour before and since which makes me think him a seemingly unpleasant fool.
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>> It is/was his attitude to that and other acts and his behaviour before and since which makes me think him a seemingly unpleasant fool.
Yeah. I doubt if he had any friends to warn and tease him back towards normality. Solitude and well-founded paranoia don't improve the disposition. I dunno if drink was a factor but it seems not unlikely.
It's a rural tragedy, like something out of Balzac but bitterly real.
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If you find his farm on Google Maps, you can begin to understand how he might feel living there.
Late one night on the way back from London on the A21, I found a broken down Mini with no lights waiting for help in a rather dangerous spot. I reversed up and waited with my emergency flashers on for the breakdown truck to arrive.
The next time I passed in daylight I was shocked to discover that there was a house right opposite the breakdown spot. There was a layby outside, but rocks had been placed there to stop anyone parking.
I subsequently discovered it's quite common round here - people living in beautiful, but isolated rural areas, who are presumably afraid of strangers.
Last edited by: John Boy on Thu 31 Dec 15 at 18:51
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Its the edge of the fens up there, the nearest thing we have to hillbilly country.
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Reading CGN's link, it does sound like he's got mental health problems.
I wonder if someone was worried that he was going to do something or he fell out with someone as it seemed to be preplanned ?
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I would be surprised if he was not on someone's "keep an eye on him" list.
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>>
>> I subsequently discovered it's quite common round here - people living in beautiful, but isolated
>> rural areas, who are presumably afraid of strangers.
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Given the type of people Mr. Martin encountered that fateful night, it's hardly surprising.
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>>The next time I passed in daylight I was shocked to discover that there was a house right opposite the breakdown spot. There was a layby outside, but rocks had been placed there to stop anyone parking.
>>I subsequently discovered it's quite common round here - people living in beautiful, but >>isolated rural areas, who are presumably afraid of strangers.
They may not necessarily be afraid of strangers John Boy, but living in beautiful but isolated rural areas, they perhaps feel more vulnerable than folk who live in built-up urban areas.
You could well think differently, if you had a layby outside your property, and every Tom, Dick, and Harriet saw it as their right to park there at any hour of the day ... or night.
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The layby is obviously their private land, otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to place rocks there.
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When I owned this property, people would often park outside to have their sandwiches or whatever at all times of the day or night, not realising the land was actually on my title deeds.
I never put rocks etc. there to put a stop to it, although I would have had a dry-stone wall built if I had stayed there.
www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.3586281,-4.7335859,3a,75y,313.93h,57.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sdOCzgcORGPEJCfexvlMqDQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
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>> not realising the land was actually
>> on my title deeds.
>>
>
Owning the land does not necessarily mean it isn't part of the highway. It is a refutable presumtion that a frontager owns the land up to the centre of the road. That doesn't give him any rights to regulate passage or parking on it however.
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>>Owning the land does not necessarily mean it isn't part of the highway
I did contact the previous owner of said bungalow who advised me that the frontage had always been as it was since it was built in the 1960's, so I would have had to go to planning if I had wanted to have a hedge constructed there, although I suspect that it wouldn't have been granted.
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I took the word "lay-by" to mean its commonly accepted sense as being part of the public highway and therefore open to anyone to park.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Thu 31 Dec 15 at 20:26
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>> You could well think differently, if you had a layby outside your property, and every
>> Tom, Dick, and Harriet saw it as their right to park there at any hour
>> of the day ... or night.
>>
Perhaps something to think about before they move in.
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In this case, it was a private layby, but I've seen the same thing done on grass verges. I can understand perfectly, but, until then I'd not seen it as a disadvantage of living in the countryside.
As it happens, we live in a close where the houses are more or less in a circle. One of the neighbours describes it as being like covered wagons in the wild west. Several houses overlook our front door and that's a good feeling.
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>>Several houses overlook our front door and that's a good feeling.
And the back door??
;)
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Until the family from hell moves in as was our misfortune for eight years.
No neighbours has its advantages.
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Idiot. - No FM2R
