The Curmudgeon

For the past two weeks, we have been seeking out, without success, the stool pigeon who brought in a bird conservation inspector when a trout-eating goosander duck was done to death by shotgun on of Old Bridge Pool.

We locals now know the culprit (shhhh!) but whilst that one was being sorted out, another two have arisen.

You see, some person or persons unknown has/have lodged objections with the council to stop Maggots Money Grubber turning the old quarry into a commercial fishery. And a second lot has/have launched yet another campaign to have the old church clock chimes silenced between 10 pm and 8 am.

But who is stirring up one new set of aggro and reviving an old one? That is what we want to know but, until the council actually goes public, we are in the dark and not a mite happy about it at all.

Maggot's plan has, in general, been received with relish, partly because at one time we feared that the quarry might be used as a landfill site for Bradford's domestic waste.

The new scheme will not only give us some better fishing but also promises to give Ben the Bucket his first fulltime job since the quarry, where he was head shot firer, closed some 20 years ago.

So who could object? Suspicion has fallen on Teachers Tess and husband Tim, because their cottage lies on the far side of The Lane from the quarry entrance and, our spies at the council office tell us, the cause for the lodged objection is a fear of increased traffic.

Now this would surprise no-one - in fact, we rather expect Tess to object to anything new - but the attempt to silence the church clock has come as a bolt from the proverbial.

We have been here before, you see, and won because the village clock, loud though it is, holds a significant and sad place in Beggarsdale history.

It was given to the parish at some considerable expense by the Hyphen-Hyphen family, owners of the then flourishing Big House, after both their sons were killed in World War One.

The Big House and its once large estate never flourished again. With no direct heirs, it all passed to a remote branch of the family from down Berkshire way - and they were much more interested in the bright lights of London or the South of France than a hard-working shooting and agricultural estate in what can be a pretty bleak part of Yorkshire.

When the clock chimes, particularly on a still winter's night, windows rattle and, it is said, sometimes slates are dislodged. But it was meant that way: the Big House is a fair stride from the church and, says village legend, the grieving mother wanted to hear the striking bells because they were a Christian antidote to the heathen artillery fire of the Western Front.

We locals have lived with that - and the long and steady decline of the estate - ever since we can remember. It is so much part of village life that the chimes rarely waken us.

So why, out of the blue, is someone trying to throw a cloak of silence over our sad but proud history?

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