I hope that you did not read last month's rendering of Out and About?  How could I have brought myself?  I can only put it down to forgetting my station: wanting to hobnob with the literati; any proper sense of balance thrown to the winds.  

I was writing at the time (I fear perhaps you read it?) extolling the virtues of the River Wandle.  All very well if I had left it at that.  But no.    My eye lit on a scurrilous passage put out by one of our leading poets. Leading poets? - that was my downfall.  

For at least a century, perhaps longer, the peoples of our Parish and of the neighbouring Parish of Carshalton have lived in peace together, in sweet tranquillity: casting warm smiles across the border, kindly enquiries, a certain amount of inter-marriage, that sort of thing. There have been periodic invitations, on both sides, to each other's flower shows, baby shows, picnics and so forth.  

But now, alas, perhaps no more, these pastoral delights.  And all because of some ill-chosen words written by a poet about the river Wandle and the great-great-great-grandparents of our beloved neighbours, residents of Carshalton: taken up by an editor who ought to have known better.

For the Editor there will be instant dismissal: no doubt about that.   This, in itself, will be no great loss to our Parish affairs.  Editors are found growing, in profusion, on the majority of the trees within our Parish borders.  

But, then (I tremble), might there possibly be others sucked in too?: perhaps our compositor?: nay, also the compositor's husband, some of the children; perhaps even the compositor’s cat?

Sack the editor?: why yes, of course, highly dispensable.  Compositor?: why of course not - totally irreplaceable.

I turn slowly. What is that faint glimmer that I see at the horizon? Perhaps (who knows?) a sign for hope? Is it just possible, with a stretch of the imagination, that they did not see that Parish Magazine, those excellent people, near neighbours of the Parish of Carshalton?

I have a plan. We must do what we can to mend fences, build bridges, pour oil on any troubled waters; all pull together, make these our neighbours especially welcome to our flower shows, baby shows, picnics and so forth. And then, who knows, we may yet experience, as in previous times, that old tranquillity, the old cordialities, smiles exchanged over the Parish border. It may even be possible to have the editor reinstated.

Just one more word. I have it on most reliable authority that the term compositor should not be used; is quite meaningless; was last in general use about the time of Noah. So why on earth do I keep on using it? I must tell you why. It is because what Sue does is good beyond description,– a family business right down to the cat.