UNTIDY BUT UNBOWED

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28530, 8 March 1958, Page 12

UNTIDY BUT UNBOWED

(By

WHIM WHAM]

Municipal Association has its way, city and borough councus will in future nave the powei to require owners of untidy sections to keep them tidy. There was no opposition from delegates at the annual conference when the Mt. JiosklU Borough Council proposed —News item ° e taken by amendit ‘B the Municipal Corporations Act. There is a Freedom which i particularly cherish, Rather than surrender Which 1 would not ungladly perish. It is not my Freedom to think or write or speak For Which I am willing to lay down my Life this Week— Some °th er Time, Sir, I may be among the Starters Whep the Liberty that remains to us wants Martyrs— No, the Freedom I here allude to is no less Than a Freedom to let my Section get into a Mess And STAY in a Mess as long as it suits me, it’s my Spction, and if I let the Grass grow knee-high And the Hedges straggle and the Weeds run Riot—why, What Right has the Local Authority to poke its Nose Into my private Jungle however dense it grows And command me to call in Bulldozers, Rotary Hoes, Concrete Mixers, Landscape Architects, Hormone Sprays And similar civilising Agencies? Spare my Days, Sir! Isn’t this foreign to our freedom-loving Ways? Keeping up with the Joneses , may be All very well If you feel that Way, but Noboay’s going to compel Me to adopt the Joneses’ Idea of a tidy Section When my Inclinations just don t lie in that Direction. Mind you, I draw the Line at empty Bottles and Cans But Im against any Interference with any Man’s Right to make a Dump of his Section, so long As my Health’s not imperilled and the Smell’s not too strong; And as for the Joneses and their prize-winning home Garden, I can think of a few Compost Heaps that call for Pardon As much as Anything you’ll find (if you can find a Thing!) in the Wilderness in whicn like the Birds I sit and sing, AND Sir, this Freedom’s one to which I shall cling If all the Authorities on Earth start clamouring, “Five Days shalt thou labour, viz., from Monday to Friday. And on the Sixth and Seventh thou shall keep thy Section tidy.”