The Curmudgeon

When the Quiet Couple moved into Coney Cottage some years ago, their arrival in Beggarsdale from Hampstead caused instant conflict. Their first act was to stop Owd Tom ferreting in the cottage's seven acres of wood, scrub and paddock.

They had not even realised, Quentin and Andrea, the Quiet Couple, that coney is the colloquial word for rabbit and that their property was riddled with the beasties.

They soon changed their minds when all their fencing was undermined and their goats turned the place into Colditz Cottage, escaping into the village and hoovering up all the neighbours' veg, flowers and shrubs like locusts on amphetamines.

An uneasy sort of peace was restored, then, but now a new menace has arrived in the Dale - and one which, having wings, is not much threatened by Tom's latest ferret, Fearsome Phyllis.

Wood pigeons, you see, are now breeding so fast that they have become more numerous in some places than starlings. That's official, as recently reported by the British Trust for Ornithology.

No-one in Beggarsdale could enjoy their Brussels (now known as British) sprouts with their turkey over Christmas because they had all gone from the gardens, stripped by pigeons even more efficiently than Q and A's goats.

And Owd Tom had an answer to that: "We'll eat the bleepers." So out came his old 12-bore and for the past few weeks, the Dale has echoed with Tom the Terminator's cannon.

At the Beggars' Arms, the Innkeeper's lady came up with a fine old recipe for the flow of carcasses, stewing them for hours in a slow oven with cider and a dash of brandy.

The dish became so famous that foodies from miles around came a'drooling: even the restaurant critic of one of the county magazines is said to have raved (although his review is yet to be published).

Trouble is, as soon as they realised that profit was to be made, Tom and his son and grandson soon shot Hard Rock Farm and the neighbours' fields bare.

By last week, the pigeon population had retreated to their last redoubt: Coney Wood. It was time for Woody's Last Stand ... or so Tom and his lads thought.

They had only netted a single brace when Andrea, in her painters' smock, face covered in multi-coloured warpaint (she's an artist, you see) came screaming into clearing at edge of the wood: "How dare you ...on my property ...you ...you murderers you...."

"Nah then, 'old thar 'orses lass," soothed Tom. ""We's just riddin' thee o' a darn nuisance. Can't 'elp t'noise but us'll be gone bar dinner time."

Andrew was not in a mood for soothing even though, ever since the barney over the coneys, she had held something of a soft spot for Tom (a feeling mutually shared, I should add).

"Now Tom, don't come soft-soaping me," she snapped. "Rabbits are one thing. But these are birds. They fly..."

Well, there is not much you can say about that. Vermin with wings is, in the English townie's mind, different from vermin with legs. So pigeon pie's orft the menu at the Beggars' - and Coney Wood has become a Trojan Horse in the Battle of the Beggarsdale Birds.

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.