Table Stolen

Having been fortunate to experience a bumper harvest of cooking apples this year and being somewhat reluctant to eat apple pie every day for the next 3 months (despite them being delicious!), I decided to follow the example shown by others and offer passing locals free apples on a ‘Please help Yourself’ basis.

I placed abundant stock on a wooden table at the end of our communal drive close to the kerbside of Tysoe Road (left hand side just as you pass the cemetery of St Lawrence Church heading towards Tysoe from Oxhill) on Saturday afternoon 8th September.

I was very pleased to see that by the end of the day the entire stock had been gratefully collected, with someone even taking the trouble to leave a short thank you note. As it was getting dark at the time I decided to postpone picking more apples to give away until the following morning, so left the table plus the stack of carrier bags in place with a large rock on top to stop them blowing away.

Sadly, when I returned in the morning with another supply of apples I was somewhat dismayed and saddened to find that my table had been stolen either during the night or that morning of the 9th. Whoever decided to stretch my gesture of ‘help yourself’ to its ultimate limit of meaning even thought it okay to simply discard the plastic carrier bags into the ditch at the side.

It’s not so much the intrinsic value of the table which bothers me, more the principal at stake. Therefore, if anyone witnessed someone loading a round, three-legged light wood 3 foot tall table into their vehicle on either the evening of the 8th or morning of the 9th Sept, then I would appreciate any information or assistance in getting it returned (Sunday morning traffic is usually busy with people doing the Tysoe run to buy their Sunday papers). If those responsible are reading this and find themselves wanting to do the right thing then kindly feel free to leave it anonymously where you originally found it at the end of our drive. However, I prefer to think it was down to a random passing stranger with no appreciation of certain country dwellers’ customs like this who must have thought it rather charming to see free tables on offer at the roadside together with packaging supplied to wrap it up with too!

Whichever way you look at it, isn’t it sad to think that there are people out there who think it fine to take things from those showing a well-meaning kind gesture (and trust) to total strangers?

Craig Flint

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Last modified: October 02, 2007