The Next Iteration

Every few years we go through a phase of being the centre of attention from a group of bored teenagers. They all do exactly the same things, behave in exactly the same ways, and all come to the conclusion that there’s more to life than hanging around the centre of the village annoying people, and move on, some to settled normality, and some to more elaborate forms of nuisance. Each group invariably thinks that it’s the first ever to go through this cycle, but in fact all that distinguishes them is that some are more trouble than others.

Our last group moved on during the pandemic: all it took to sort out the problem out (and they were particularly problematic, that gang) was a global public health emergency. Of all the solutions the community discussed, that wasn’t one of them.

Now we seem to have a new group: same pattern, same nonsense: mess in the churchyard and graffiti on the walls, and annoyance to the Co-Op and the police. The other day the police caught a lad with a kitchen knife, which is discouraging. They’ve kept out of the church building itself, so far. After the graffiti you can see in the photo was left, I checked the CCTV, which is the major difference since the last time we went through the cycle. It had mysteriously turned off at 8.20am the day before because the monitor unit on the table in the office had become unplugged. How did that happen? Very few people have a key to the office, and nobody who would have been there at that time. It took a while before I realised that the system didn’t automatically reset the time when BST begins, so what I thought was 8.20am was in fact 9.20. That would have been when I was waiting for the mid-morning service. So it was me that did it.

(NB. The name on the bench arm reads 'Trevor' but I am pretty sure it doesn't refer to Mad Trevor).