Vale Hard Rubbish Collections, We Hardly Knew Ye

Remember the old days of the community hard rubbish collection, when all the neighbourhood fossickers (me, and quite possibly you) would come out after dark like pixies and pick over the piles of broken/dangerous/toxic goods, in the hope of finding a gold nugget?

I do. And I have friends with mint-condition rocking chairs and authentic 1950s bowling bags to prove it. In fact, one of my favourite chairs (a 30s-40s timber dining chair, someone’s lacquered it black but that’s a mistake I can live with) came into my possession because someone left it to the elements in a churchyard near where I live.

But it looks like the Fun Police have come down hard on hard rubbish.