Street Crime - Country Style!

It was late one Saturday night. I was headed for home along a route I have successfully navigated hundreds of times before.

Suddenly there was a noise which took my attention. A strange combination of growl and hiss began to come from the bushes to my right. The culprit soon presented himself to be a fairly sizeable badger who had taken an extreme disliking to my presence this particular evening.

It was a moonless night but I could still just about make out the stripy faced little git as he began to charge towards me.

Now I had grown up as a child on the image of the Gentle, wise old badgers from tales such as Wind in the Willows and The Animals of Farthing Wood.

The one that was charging down this slightly bemused bystander on a moonless Saturday evening was certainly no Genial wood-dweller. Here we had a hole-dwelling hoodie not only heading for his first ASBO, but more importantly, heading for my ankles.

I had up until this point been having highly enjoyable evening and had no intention of ending it by being eaten alive by a loveable woodland favourite - The humiliation would have been to great.

So I took the only obvious action available to me at the time. I turned on my heals and legged it. I very nearly gave him my wallet and car keys as well!

And so I come to stand before you all today and ask you take heed of my warning. Street crime is not just an urban thing. It’s just a lot more bizarre out here in the sticks.