Nearly three days after the beaten bodies of two men, believed to be Afghans, were found dumped in New Lane, Tong, blue and white police tape was still sealing off both ends of the country lane yesterday.

The national media might talk of “the terror of Tong” but local people in the leafy southern suburb of Bradford were said to be either shocked or intrigued by the discovery of two bodies at Raikes Lane and New Lane on Tuesday night.

Paul Stafford, for the past seven years landlord of the Tong Street pub-restaurant, The Greyhound, said: “You don’t expect it in a place like this, but we are bordering on the Holme Wood area and that can be a bit tasty at times.

“A lot of our trade is car trade. It is a very busy area because of the link between the Leeds ring road and the Bradford ring road. We have a regular police presence but usually to do with traffic.

“People have been talking about this. I suppose the reaction has been shock or amusement in some cases because you don’t expect it in an area like this.

“Before we came (Paul and his wife Susan) said there used to be one or two break-ins; but since I have been here hardly anything.”

Drystone walls, a church, a pub, a garden centre and a red telephone box are hardly enough to call Tong a village, except that it does have a “very active” community association and village cricket social club, according to Bob McCutcheon, for the past 25 years secretary of Tong Manor Cricket Club, and “general dogsbody”.

He was preparing the wicket on the pitch behind The Greyhound for today’s league cricket match involving Farnley Hill, which shares the ground with Tong Manor.

A part-time teacher at Priesthorpe School, Pudsey, he said: “It’s an archetypal English pub and village cricket green; it’s because it’s quiet that this happens.

“I am not surprised by it because of the things that are going on these days. I have friends in the police force; they tell me of far worse things and the drug-dealing going on in Leeds and Bradford.

“If it had been somebody breaking into a home and there had been a murder, there would be absolute panic.

“The last one up the road (in 2002 the body of violent drug dealer Philip Smith was found in a lay-by not far from New Lane) had his head shot with a shotgun, both barrels, my friends in the police said; but people still walk their dogs in the lane.

“No, I am not going to take to wearing a flak jacket. It’s not Dodge City, definitely.”

The sudden arrival of police officers, forensic experts and a horde of camera-toting journalists has caused a bit of a stir in the locality; but of greater concern seems to be the forthcoming grudge cricket match between Tong Manor and historic rivals Drighlington on June 18.

Tong Manor, formed in 1871, is one of the oldest clubs in Yorkshire. The likes of W G Grace played on the ground. One of the club’s first league matches was against Drighlington.

In Tong, cricket is more of a regular occurrence than murder.

The impression from talking to some locals in Holme Wood is that violence is more common in parts of the estate than cricket.

When fire officers doused a burning mattress in Pitt Hill Park on Thursday and found a badly-charred body, a part of the estate became besieged.

One woman, a mother-of-two who would only identify herself as Donna, described how on Thursday teatime she had watched armed police officers surround a neighbouring house, following the discovery of the corpse in the park, off Holme Lane.

She said: “We had police with guns in my back garden. There were six or seven round the front. They were there for about half an hour and then five armed officers went into the house.

“I don’t know why there was a stand-off that long. That was alarming. It was exciting for the kids, they wanted to watch it. We were scared. It’s scary round here.”

She was speaking near a small shopping precinct on sloping Broadstone known locally as “top shops”. The designation has more to do with geographical location than anything else.

A second woman, an unmarried mother-of-three who wanted to be identified as Dawn, said she was born and raised on Holme Wood but now lived at Odsal.

She described how a teenage boy had recently found a loaded gun in a garden and accidentally shot himself in the foot. Another lad had tried to ride one of the horses tethered in a nearby field, had fallen off and had to be taken away by ambulance for treatment.

“I feel safe in Odsal at night. I am glad I don’t live round here; I would be a nervous wreck,” she added.

Donna said she had twice had to replace the wing mirrors on her car, which had been damaged by youths.

“I am wanting to move now; it’s gone really downhill. I don’t want my son growing up round here,” she said.

If somebody has a bad experience it is unsettling, said the Reverend Canon Gordon Dey, vicar of St James’s Church in Tong and St Christopher’s Church in Holme Wood.

His two churches couldn’t be more differently located. St James’s, off leafy Tong Street, is a peaceful semi-rural church. St Christopher’s in Holme Wood is bang on the crossroads of Broadstone Way and Holme Wood Road, opposite the shops in The Parade.

St Christopher’s even has its own bus stop. Metro pays the church £100 a year for a bus shelter on a small section of church land.

Canon Dey, who retires in July, is well aware of the bad press Holme Wood has had over the years.

While he might acknowledge that every barrel has its bad apples (bad but not necessarily beyond redemption), he says he has never felt threatened in the 26 years he has lived in the vicarage adjacent to St Christopher’s. Neither has the church building, open all hours, suffered any wanton vandalism.

He said: “On Wednesday night, before anybody was aware of what was going on (in Pitt Hill Park) we had a community council meeting at which the police gave us some of the best crime statistics you could wish for.

“I’ve never felt unsafe in Holme Wood; I love this place, more than any place I’ve ever lived. I will be devastated when I have to leave.

“I have five sons, they have all been brought up here, their best friends are in Holme Wood.

“We have loads of stuff here for children and families; it’s a very supportive community. There is a strength and stability about this community that’s very impressive.”

Like most places, Holme Wood is a curate’s egg: good in parts, not so good in others.

For today, though, this week’s events are likely to be overshadowed by events in the FA Premiership and the FA Cup.

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