The Curmudgeon

And we could see the havoc before we saw the people causing it, represented by showers of mud and divots of turf thrown high into the air, well above the drystone walls that border the bridlepath from the surrounding meadows.

Ben the Bucket and I, working on our allotments, stopped and stared as the air was rent with the screams of powerful engines and clouds of sodden missiles.

"Ruddy 'eck," said Ben, stunned. "What's this: another Pearl Harbour?"

And that's what it sounded like the first day we were invaded by the Mud Manglers.

This first lot were the Mini Manglers, young yobbos riding trail motorbikes along the bridleway which had brought the peddlers and the packhorsemen to Beggarsdale centuries before the first paved roads.

In one Easter morning, they converted this ancient thoroughfare into a sort of railway track in reverse, with deep ruts sunk into the earth instead of track above it. The noise brought Owd Tom raging down from Hardrock Farm but the culprits were gone before he could take a stick to bright-leathered backs. But t'worse was to come...

Another variety of mud mangler appeared on May Day Monday, in posh 4x4s.

This time, Tom went for his shotgun and, had not the law dictated that he keeps his gun and his cartridges separate, a few expensive windscreens would have been peppered with more than mere mud.

As it was, the Mud Mangling Majors were again long gone before Tom could find the keys he had misplaced in his rage.

He tried to give chase on his ancient Fordson tractor but - and anyone who laughs about this in Tom's presence is risking sudden death - he actually became bogged down on the path he and his forebears have been using for generations.

After centuries, Beggarsdale is on the mud bath map, her rural innocence outraged by cretins who believe the countryside is there to be desecrated by noise, filth and exhaust fumes, a sort of sand pit for grown-up spoilt brats.

No doubt these people communicate with each other from their posh houses in the suburbs: "Good news, Nigel. We've found an absolutely super spot for the next outing. All green and quiet and peaceful, hoah, hoah hoah. Give us a couple of months and we'll be having it looking like the the Battle of the Somme hoah, hoah."

Now Owd Tom is just too old to go to prison, which is why we called out the Rev Rupert to to dissuade him for going ahead with his plan of stretching taught wires across the bridleway.

"S'wot we did in Italy in '44," he said. "It'd take 'eads clean off them Gerry dispatch riders"

A tempting thought if, sadly, somewhat over the top. But as we face yet another Bank Holiday weekend, any Mud Manglers heading Beggarsdale way would be well advised to keep their wits about them.

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

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