An escaped lion in my village, St. Osyth!

For nearly 24 hours, fear, alarm and a great deal of excitement had stalked the tiny Essex village of St Osyth 

There's always trouble for someone. A great bank holiday Monday news story though.




St Osyth is famous for the two biggest witch trials in English history - oddly separated by a century - someone should write an English version of Montaillou about them - and the finest priory in England. Also for East Londoners and caravans. it is not tiny but huge, almost a town. 5,000 people live there, mostly refugees from East London (the place people mean when they say 'Essex' these days).


STOP PRESS: 

The police called off the hunt.



What innocent fun - it is in the best tradition of 1930s journalism - I am reminded of Orwell's Decline of the Great English Murder. It also has something of Enid Blyton or Richmal Crompton about it. There is still an England, despite out of town shopping centres, gay marriage and all the horrors of modern life.


This is going the rounds on Facebook.The jokes will stop if the lion emerges from the cornfields. Until then it sounds like a Just William story.