WE don't see much of Hermione Hyphen-Hyphen in the village come wintertime. She tends to spend the gloomy months on mummy and daddy's yacht in the West Indies and, quite frankly, who can blame her.

But when she gets back now that spring in on its way (or is actually

here, according to the calendar) she will be in for a bit of a shock.

And a few harsh words, I shouldn't be at all surprised. For although she is not personally to blame for the crime wave which has rocked Beggarsdale these past few weeks, her ever willingness to do good for the less fortunate was a major contributory factor.

Easter weekend, as I predicted last week, turned out to be something of

a nightmare. When the last of the holi-day-cottage owners finally turned

up on Sunday, no less than nine of them had been robbed. Some had also

been defiled in ways I shall not discuss.

That made 11 burglaries and two attempts in a fortnight, which is

more crime that the village has suffered in most locals' lifetimes. And

it might have been worse but for John Bull's son The Bullock, who lives

with his wife in the old East Wing at the Big House, Hermione's

not-so-stately pile.

They started lambing on Easter Monday and the Bullock was up early,

wandering across the courtyard to his Land Rover, when he fell over

something lying in the corner by the old stables. Then that something

groaned. Puzzled, the Bullock went to the Land Rover, switched on the lights, and saw that the bundle was, in a most general use of the term, a human

being. And lying next to it was an empty bottle of vodka and a rather

large silver cup.

The Bullock, a giant of a young man who plays Number Eight for Beggarsdale RUFC, ran to his flat, shouted his wife to ring the police,

ran back and lifted the limp figure as though it were a rag doll.

"What t'ell is tha doin' 'ere," he demanded. Before he got an answer,

the door of the old stable behind him swung open and another figure

leapt onto his back.

Now this is not a wise thing to do with The Bullock. With one swing from

his mighty forearms, the second in-truder flew through the air clean

through the upper stable door, landing, fortunately for him, on a large

pile of straw and other less mentionable material. The lad on the ground

followed.

By the time the police arrived (and this time it took less than half an

hour), the two were tightly trussed with bailer twine and were looking

very sorry for themselves indeed.

The search of the Big House that followed revealed a veritable Aladdin's

cave of stolen property hidden below the stage in the theatre school,

Hermione's latest failed madcap venture: she had wanted to use the place

as a home for "resting" actors but, it seems, they preferred to rest in

the big cities, nearer to the dole queue.

And, we were told later, it was in those queues that our burglars had met one of the aforesaid thespians and had learned of the Big House.

They had been living there, on stolen food and booze, in the disused theatre for nigh on a month.

So Beggarsdale got its very own Hole in the Wall Gang although these two

scruffy junkies hardly live up to the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

image. Now, of course, we wait for the wheels of justice to start churning.

l The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character

in a mythical village.