I DON'T know about anyone else but I like the lovely signs sprouting up everywhere in the Forest warning us "Beware Sheep." Well worth the money we the tax payers are paying for them I say (tongue in cheek, of course!)
They add colour at this time of year to an otherwise rather drab countryside.
Now I have a question. Assuming the signs mean what I assume they do, in what way are these new imports to our lovely district dangerous?
As a milk boy, paper boy, farm boy and postman over the years I came across a lot of "Beware The Dog" signs, and meaningful they were. Dogs bite! That I can vouch for.
"Beware the Bull" signs need heeding. I've been glad to be the other side of the gate in markets as an Animal Health Inspector when a bull got nasty on occasion.
Even cockerels should sometimes be warned about. They can leave a nasty scratch on the bare legs of little boys when they attack.
What about sheep then? We once had a pet lamb near us on the Mill Hill, Bream, which became a sheep of uncertain temperment. It butted anyone in sight, and local children ran as it approached. Luckily the sheep didn't have too long a life, and normality returned on the greens around us after a couple of years. It was a one off.
Do our immigrant sheep bite or butt, I wonder?
Do they get you down and maul you like a lion when cornered? Or does the danger come from the rear end in the form of dung, which if slipped on could mean a week or two in hospital without a claim for damages against the sheep being successful? Perhaps they pass colds around. There are a lot of cold sufferers at the moment. Down to the woollies perhaps?
The 'Beware' signs are more likely to be warning us, or should be, of the dangerously high cost these wanderers are to us taxpayers, both in subsidy we pay annually for each ewe running the Forest, the cost in damage to our vehicles if we collide with them, and the tremendous cost to householders and the Forestry for stockproof gates and fences.
Then, of course, what about the cost of policing their movements to council and government officials. Not peanuts I'll bet. – Cyril Miles, Woodland Road, Bream.