ONE can't help but notice, as one journeys from Cradley to Worcester along the A4104, a double notice board of monstrous proportions at the bottom of Storridge Bank, in the field beside the road up to Vinesend.
It appears to be part advertisement (for the North Ledbury Point to Point) and part a statement of quite exceptional fatuity.
It reads: 'You are now driving through a countryside cared for by the North Ledbury Hunt.'
'Cared for'? What on earth does this mean?
Do the members of the Hunt, en masse, rush round in their frilly aprons, marigolds and yellow dusters polishing up the hard fruit? Do they curry comb the grass? Hand out buckets of bran to tractor drivers? Plant perfervid kisses on the snouts of local porkers? I don't think so. In fact, I don't think the North Ledbury Hunt do much at all to the countryside round here, save gallop round on it to the amusement of Charlie Fox.
I am not particularly anti-Hunt; nor am I particularly pro-Hunt. Both factions seem to me to have their full share of arrogant knaves and pompous fat heads, and quite frankly deserve each other. But I do very much object to socking great self-aggrandising notices such as this which vulgarise the very landscape they claim to celebrate.
I am told that such notices do not require planning permission. I think it's about time they did.
CHRISTOPHER LOWDER, Cradley.
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