Youff

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I know I said I would write this blog about them. But now I come to it, I'm not at all sure if I can be bothered to waste the time, for a waste of time it does seem to be.

Browning did it well enough, in the "Pied Piper".
Picture, if you will, his description of the rats plaguing the town in all its breathless tumbling disorder, but without the merry exhilaration, and there you have our Youff in a nutshell. Unwanted and disrespectful denizens, lurking around the open spaces of the church grounds, climbing the building, damaging roofs and large expensive windows. Pulling off drainpipes, standing to urinate off the flat Church roof in front of the windows of the adjacent old folks' flats. Generating huge quantities of litter, which they leave all over the grass. Cycling across the grass, making deep ruts; or up and down the church drive - and even at speed straight out into the main road, heedless of any damage they might do to some poor passing motorist. In the middle of that road they are apt to demonstrate their skill at riding on one wheel, or without hands on the handlebars, usually along the white line: fatal accidents waiting to happen, though their irresponsible death-wish has thus far remained unfulfilled; you might think unfortunately, though I couldn't possibly comment. Hanging around in front of the Lady Chapel, or by the churchyard gate, in sufficient numbers to oblige passers-by to step onto the road, they play loud music and scuffle with one another. Their language is foul, and often wilfully blasphemous. Betimes one arrives with a grimy old Lambretta, whose rattling engine puthers clouds of fumes as he revs his noisy way up and down the drive; sometimes there is a small, old, car (usually one with blackened windows) which arrives and leave without lights and for a while becomes their focus of attention; most likely one of the local drug suppliers.

This year so far their pastimes have included removing about an hundred bricks from one side of the church gate wall, with coping stones to match, some of which they bounced off one of the Sanctuary's leaded windows.

I should quite like to send the repair bills to their parents; or even just to have the police catch them at it, but that seldom happens. And frankly even when the Officers of the law do arrive, law is the last thing they endeavour themselves to enforce. They will wriggle to extreme lengths to avoid actually having to do that. The youths' assorted vehicles seldom look roadworthy, and often have no lights, even after dusk but no one ever seems to think of prosecuting their silly young drivers for any offence.

Too many parents who evidently couldn't give a damn so long as their kids aren't upsetting them, I fear. Too few police trying to keep order, though its hardly their fault - their managers' budgets, one suspects, really only stretch to major crime, or tax collecting when someone who is an easy target, like a local teacher or doctor, offends a speed camera by doing 2 mph over the limit on a day when the constabulary need to meet their monthly targets.

Oh, and I forgot. The apple tree will have to come down. This year's best wheeze so far is to pick up its fruit from the edge of the church grounds, and throw it at people's windows - or passing cars - or the nice white fronts of my neighbours over the road.....

But there you go. I cannot write more. I fear I am losing the will to live......