Once at my old local paper, the Grimsby Evening Telegraph, a trainee made the mistake of sniggering when asked to cover the allotments sub-committee. ‘Don’t ever fuck with allotment holders,’ the news editor warned. ‘It may not matter to you, but they take those little patches of land very seriously indeed.’ Like most of the news editor’s salty words of wisdom, this advice was forged on the anvil of bitter experience. Grimsby’s allotmenteers guarded their marrow and runner bean patches with a Balkan-esque blood-and-soil passion. The slightest mistake could generate no end of angry phone calls and green-ink letters.
I am not sure allotment coverage was quite what King Charles had in mind when he lavished praise on local newspapers last week.
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