Imperial ambitions

Early on the morning of Friday 24 June, Darren Gratton went into his butcher’s shop in Barnstaple and changed his wall signs, which at this time of year are mostly about barbecue packs. Emboldened in the Brexit dawn, he deleted all references to ‘kg’ and replaced each one with ‘lb’. Tempted to do the same to the labels inside the display cabinets, he decided not to, for fear of a threatening call from Trading Standards. But that small act of wall-chart insurrection was enough to spark an article in the local paper, which triggered a deluge of emails from other shopkeepers across the country in support of his brave action with the squeaky pen.

As Britain turns its face towards the exit door, and butchers dare to erase their kilo-gram signs, some are asking: will justice now be done for the Metric Martyrs? One of the many who emailed Gratton in support was Neil Herron, the steadfast campaigner for the five Metric Martyrs, whose criminal records still stand.