THE doctor's dilemma has cast a long shadow over Beggarsdale and caused one of the biggest eruptions of anger that I can recall in recent years. Even the WI got in on the act by staging its monthly debate on the motion, This house is tired of being ripped off - by everyone.

That just about sums up the entire village's feelings after we learned last week that the Doc, with the vicar one of the two most highly respected men in the Dale, was unable to retire on his 65th birthday - because he is too poor!

The con-men in the City of London have robbed him of most of his pension fund, and the bonus payments he thought he would get on his endowment policies, after more than 30 years of hard work and thrift.

The Doc himself, normally the most placid of men, is particularly angry because he cannot understand how it happened.

We all know that the stock market crashed two years ago - thanks to the dot-com scam perpetrated by that other set of conmen on Wall Street - but since then it has made up for much of the lost ground.

"I thought I would lose about a quarter of what I might reasonably have expected - but most of it has gone and I just can't find out where," he told Cousin Kate in the post office when he went to collect his first old age pension "The first money I have had off the state since I left college 40 years ago," he said in a rare - nay, a totally unique - outburst.

That set Kate off, for like most small shopkeepers inn the Dales, she has been struggling to keep the post office open these past ten years in an organisation, the once proud Royal Mail, that makes Fawlty Towers look like a model of efficiency.

In came Owd Tom, also to collect his pension, for every OAP in the Dale has agreed to draw the cash from Cousin Kate, rather than have it paid into the bank, just to help keep the place open. And the Government is about the scrap that service too.

Tom, who has been working for at least 60 years - including risking life and limb for Queen and Country for five years in World War 11 - counted his state pittance and snarled: "Just think, that secretary robbed 'er bosses a' three million quid - an' thar didn't even notice it were gone."

"Ay," said the Doc. "I wish I'd put all my savings into Tesco shares instead of insurance policies. They've just made £1.6 billion profit."

"Oh yes," said Kate acidly, "and they've done it by putting thousands of shops like this out of business."

Now when a conversation like this starts in the post office it tend to be taken up by virtually everyone in the Dale. It becomes a sort of marathon moan that can even reach the pulpit.

This was one of those occasions, because the vicar has his own pension to worry about - as well as a miserly stipend - because in recent years, the Church of England has made even the Royal Mail look good when it comes to business acumen. Last Sunday, his sermon sizzled with the evils of greed.

So the WI slated the subject for the debating society and it went on and on. Fat cats are getting fatter, the Government has poured £20 billion into schools and the NHS only to see productivity drop by up to 25%, and it is alleged that David Beckham got a mere £40,000 for being videoed. Whilst he was asleep!

The WI motion was carried unanimously, of course. But no-one answered the question: is there anyone, anywhere, in Government, in big business, or in the courts, who can stop ordinary, hard-working, decent folk being robbed blind?

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.