LOOK, I’ll admit to a spot of previous when it comes to religious fervour in the family.

My paternal grandfather was a preacher of considerable force. A compelling orator by all accounts. Blind all his life, he wore a long white beard and struck terror into the hearts of innocent townsfolk and villagers throughout his Nottinghamshire Prim?itive Methodist patch.

As a schoolboy, my father spent every Sunday accompanying him on his 13-mile circuit, listening as he stood on village greens and in market places preaching hellfire and damnation to the terrified yet enthralled masses. I suspect my dad had endured enough hellfire by the time he reached his teens and went off to join the Army. He never showed any religious propensities in later life, nor was the baton of worthy Godliness passed on to me.

But outdoor preaching is part of our British custom and culture. And it’s come to something when it’s the atheists who are adopting a “holier than thou” attitude, as seems to be happening with increasing frequency across the land.

The chap who got his collar felt while preaching in the town centre of Workington may, for all I know never having listened to him, be a pain in the proverbial old testaments. Let’s face it, most religious ranters do go on a bit. His views on homosexuality are, I gather, hardly of the modern liberal tendency. Indeed he openly tells his modest audiences that it’s a sin.

I did hope that, here in tolerant Cumbria, our police had better things to do than take offence at some ad hoc street preaching whose sentiments most of us would strongly disagree with and leave it at that. You could always just walk away and leave the fellow expressing his outdated nonsense standing there on his tod looking a complete twit.

But no. There was someone very important listening and bristling with offence. It was not only the local Police Community Support Officer, but the force’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender liaison officer.

He informed the Christian preacher that his comments constituted an offence and he would be arrested if he made any more similar assertions. When he continued to talk to passers-by, the PCSO radioed for assistance and uniformed officers arrived. The preacher man was charged with a public order offence, the sort of thing that lumps him in with football hooligans and drunks fighting in the streets.

I am really rather ashamed of our bobbies that such Draconian measures were felt necessary. Are we, in this part of the world, as infected with correctness as the rest of the country? I suspect not, but it’s coming. If my grandfather was around today I suppose he would have his stiff Sunday collar felt, too. And they would have to build a tranche of new prisons to house all those sober suited Jehovah’s Witnesses dragged in for diversity retraining after their Saturday rounds of the local council estates.

It doesn’t just affect the outdoor preachers either. In North Devon the National Secular Society has instructed lawyers to take a council to court for a judicial review with the aim of stopping the old established practice of saying prayers before meetings.

Prayers are a tradition at many council meetings. All stopping them would achieve is to upset the devout Christians and make the non-Christians feel uncomfortable. The atheists can surely just sit and mumble like most of us do on high days, holidays and funerals, those rare occasions when we see the inside of a church.

The hard core zealots aren’t the Christians. Not even my grandfather’s hellfire and damnation successors. The ones to really watch out for are in the extremist wing of the atheist movement.

Rural anarchists

SOMETIMES I wonder what it takes to stir up the public into action. Well maybe times are changing and local direct action is the thing of the future.

In one village in Dorset residents decided there was one way to halt the flow of large lorries down their narrow streets. They kept pressing the button on the pedestrian crossing. In Warwickshire, where travellers began building on an illegal site near their homes, locals provided a physical barrier.

Could it be that we have finally given up on the people who ought to be looking after us, the politicians, the local authorities, the police, and decided that, if you want the job doing, best do it yourself. It’s rather anarchic and encouraging, isn’t it?

Toll mounts — but do they care?

IT may have escaped their attention this week as they squabbled for power. The three losers heading our main political parties hardly bothered to mention Afghanistan during the election campaign. Obviously a taboo topic.

And this week the news filtered out, about half way down the news bulletins, that the 285th British soldier had been killed in that Godforsaken wilderness. Still, I don’t imagine Messrs. Cameron, Clegg and Brown gave the latest death much thought. It hardly seems a few weeks since we were being told of the 200th killing. But then, when you get into numbers, it’s all just a blur compared to the leadership power game.

They tell us that politicians have learned their lesson in the wake of the expenses scandal and they are prepared to clean up their act. I don’t see much evidence of change. There’s the same old self-interest and greed. War in Afghanistan seems a minor irritation. Meanwhile the death toll mounts up. It’s pretty damned disgraceful really.

Violent violets and dangerous daffs

IF you have ever been attacked by a bunch of plastic daffodils you will have every sympathy with council officials who, at a cemetery in Lancashire, this week ruled that plastic flowers are a “health and safety hazard”.

The long arm of the jobsworths extends beyond the grave these days. A spokeswoman for the burial committee said rules were rules and the safety of visitors and workmen must be considered. Even when you’re dead they will get you.

Relatives have been warned they could be sued for damages if passers-by stumble on the floral tributes and injure themselves.

You can’t underestimate those murderous marigolds and exploding begonias. And as for those silk roses, well treading on one of those must be worth at least ten grand’s worth of compensation.

When William Wordsworth penned those immortal words about the wild blooms he spied in Dora’s Field, he never said anything about their violent tendencies. Goes to show, you can’t be sure anything is safe these days.

Just a thought

DOES anyone out there know what a “think tank” is or what it’s for?

They’ve been getting a lot of interview time on the TV and radio this past few weeks during the election campaign and the subsequent chaos which ensued when the great British public effectively voted for “none of these”.

Who pays for think tanks? How do you get a job with one? It strikes me, if their main role is to advise politicians, they haven’t done a very good job.

Has a think tank ever mended a fuse or fixed a burst pipe or actually produced or done anything useful? Don’t rush with the answer. I think I can guess.