July 2015

VILLAGE NEWS

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH (NHW)

DISTRACTION OR WRONG ADDRESS?

Recently a villager was surprised when he noticed a

man washing the glazing in and around the front door

of his house, despite no window cleaning having been

ordered. He was even more surprised when a sec-

ond man began to clean the upstairs windows at the

back of the house, even though the rear of the house

was inaccessible via the locked side door.

When asked why he was on the property, this man

gave the correct address and asked whether it was

indeed that property. He told the house owner that a

'Dave Frost' had instructed him to wash the windows

at that address. When the owner said he knew of no

'Dave Frost', the window cleaner used his mobile tele-

phone and made a call ostensibly to 'Dave Frost' to tell

him there appeared to have been a mistake.

Asked why neither man had knocked on or rung the

door bell, the window cleaner said he'd been informed

the owner was away from home. Therefore he had

gained access to the rear garden by using his ladder

to climb on to and walk across the roofing between the

house and garage. The owner asked him to leave

and unlocked the side door for him to exit with his lad-

der. The two men took their equipment back to their

van, which had been parked on the other side of the

road, and left the area.

Was this a genuine mistake, a clever rehearsal of a

criminal plan or an actual casing of a house? (although

this seems improbable). However, the lesson must be

constant vigilance for suspicious behaviour.

Callers should use 101 to report less urgent crime or

disorder, to contact the police with a general enquiry

or to speak to a local officer.

If the incident is recognised as an emergency, the op-

erator or police call handler will put the caller through

to 999.

Your village NW Coordinators are:

Clive Williams 811828 Richard West 811467

THE FRIENDS OF BUCKDEN TOWERS

DIARY DATE: FRIDAY 3

JULY

is our annual

Coffee Morning at the Methodist School Room from

10.00 to 11.30. There will be a bring and buy stall, so

if you have any unloved Christmas presents, here is

your chance to put them to good use. As always

there will be some wickedly tempting cakes for sale.

There are still a few tickets left for Midsummer at The

Towers on 20

June, so if you have not yet got

yours, ring the office at The Towers (01480 810344)

to get them. It will be a great evening of food and

entertainment. Not the least amusement will be see-

ing me in full Tudor costume!

Our plant sale this year was a great success. The

weather was good, the site was looking lovely and

the atmosphere was friendly and welcoming. As al-

ways we had a full house of plant stalls, featuring

many plants not usually found in commercial garden

centres and all in excellent condition.

It is a measure of the great reputation of the plant

sale, that as well as many locals attending, people

come from over 20 miles away. I hope that all of you

who came enjoyed it as much as we did and found

some plants to suit you. I know that some visitors

returned more than once to load up and had difficulty

finding room in their cars for all their purchases.

The Friends Refectory team produced some wonder-

ful food, well up to their usual high standard and the

Refectory was constantly busy. They raised over

£700, which is a lot of cups of tea! Thanks are due to

them for providing refreshments to the helpers on the

day – it was very much appreciated.

My thanks also to the Red Cross for providing emer-

gency support (happily not needed) and for running

the raffle. And of course also to the team of volun-

teers in setting up, car parking and helping to clear

away afterwards.

The event was very successful, raising in total over

£3,000 to be used for the maintenance of these won-

derful buildings.

I hope those of you who visited the Knot Garden no-

ticed the new gravel that has been laid on the paths,

which I think is a great improvement. It was a lot of

hard work but well worth the effort. The toilet in the

tunnel has now been redecorated, the Kings Room

has been redecorated and had new curtains, so is

looking much improved and later in the summer a

new floor will be laid. We hope to maintain this pro-

gramme of improvements for the coming year.

John Thelwall, Chairman

Cambridgeshire Crimestoppers

Crimestoppers is a charity that run campaigns aimed

at generating intelligence that can be used by our local

constabulary to detect and thereby prevent crime. We

provide 100% anonymity to those who pass us infor-

mation and often receive intelligence that people would

otherwise not have passed directly to the police.

There is an interesting article on ‘Tackling Crime on

yopur Doorstep’ that can be viewed on our website;

you can use this link to take you there:

http://tinyurl.com/or73xwy