Each month I eagerly await the thud of The Farnham Diary dropping onto the doormat. Not for the news and local information it contains but for the pedantic nit-picking and the no-holds-barred comment section “View Point.” (There is also the excellent “Bricks and mortar reporter” section which, as an amateur town planner and fully signed up, card-carrying, curtain twitching nosy neighbour, makes up for the fact I don’t have the time to stroll around town and take note of which shops have opened and which have closed recently.) This month’s edition proved not to be a let down.
In the View Point section (pages 10 and 11 of the digital version, above) under the heading “Spaying it around…” was printed a quotation from what seems to be a press update sent by the Farnham Neighbourhood Police Team to local newspapers. The quotation in question was asking editors to assist the police in raising awareness of the existence a of police office in the local fire station. The plea was casual and light-hearted, using a reference to the town’s old police station — the closure and ongoing physical state of which is a contentious issue in the town — to make a very valid point: there there is still a local police presence in Farnham. [read more]