IT IS a full year since I wrote the piece below and published it in another place.
I have spent 12 full months worrying about the situation and wondering what might have happened.
As far as I am aware nothing has. No developments, no leads, no full-scale searches, no man-hunts or rewards offered.
It is with a heavy heart that I feel compelled to return to this sad topic.
Surely someone out there can assist Dorset police in their enquiries, even at this late stage.
Shed rustling
Down here in deepest Dorset a new-type of crime is baffling police and criminologists – shed rustling.
In the town of Bridport, as sleepy a hollow as you could turn up in a lifetime search, where the grass grows up the walls and over the roofs and the main entertainment is watching the traffic lights change colour, a dastardly crime has hit the headlines, well it would have done if the local paper was awake, and aroused passions in the citizens.
A crack team of mobsters has stolen the new shed from the churchyard. Not damaged it, not taken the contents or siphoned the petrol out of the lawn mower. No these villains have removed the lot, lock, stock and well-oiled hinges on the door.
It only arrived on Friday. Now something like that is a big event in those parts so there will have been a ceremony with the town band, the mayor cutting a ribbon and a display of precision drill from the local bin men, that sort of thing.
Then on the very same night it was nicked. Obviously there is a Mr Big behind this crime. It must have been well planned and carried out with military precision.
As befits these sombre occasions the local constabulary have issued a statement, “Police want to hear from anyone who saw the shed being removed or someone carrying it through the area.”
Now I reckon that’s the sort of thing that you would remember. I haven’t seen a gang of men carrying a large shed through the streets at dead of night in, ooh, years.
As the town comes to terms with its grief the remorseless search for the perpetrators of this heinous crime continues.
What is the nation of ours coming to when even our sheds are no longer safe?
The authorities must act, a reward for information must be offered, the usual suspects, whoever they might be, must be rounded up and questioned.
No stone can be left unturned until the shed is returned.
After all, the town hasn’t got much else.
Editor’s Note: The Red Bladder is a former national newspaper journalist - tabloid and broadsheet, since you ask.
The shed, as far as I can remember, was taken from St Swithun’s church and was worth £800.
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i think you’ll find the press were only in a mild coma and found the perpetrators were non other than the council, who took back the offending shed after it broke certain codes and by-laws associated with planning regs in the town …
That sounds a far more reasonable and likely explanation than my flight of fancy. Yet, why on earth did the church authorities report it as theft to the rozzers? A holy cock-up I daresay.