Bats in the belfry
IT is said that a vicar in Kent suggested a novel and humane solution to a bat infestation in his church (‘No, you’re not going batty’, November 15). ‘Let me baptise one of their number and, if humans are anything to go by, we will never see any of them again.’
Jane Dickins, Oxfordshire
Wiltshire initiative
JOHN MARTIN ROBINSON pays tribute to the initiative of Lytham Town Trust in rescuing). An even more remarkable instance of local initiative in saving a great house is afforded by Swindon Council’s acquisition of Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire, the St John family seat, in the depths of the Second World War. In neither case was an endowment forthcoming and in neither case was the National Trust interested. In each case, however, vision and imagination were shown locally and, in each case, there was an appreciation of what a great house and parkland could offer to the host community. It is hard to see that such qualities would be there today—quite apart from the fact that the money would not be available either.
