Living as I do in the country, I’ve grown a serious aversion
to barbed-wire.
I can see that it can be useful in restraining cattle. And
in trench warfare (until the arrival of the tank, that is). And in prisons and
concentration camps and the like (as razor-wire).
It’s been with us, more or less unchanged, since its
invention in France in the 1860s and standardisation in the US a decade later.
But nowadays it’s everywhere in the country. Round every
field and gate and stile (much of it rusty and forlorn). Whether or not there’s
any purpose to its presence.
It’s a blight. It’s unsightly. It’s practically
indestructible. And it constantly causes injury, especially to children, and to
both domesticated and wild animals – horses, deer, bats, birds etc.
Is this a global problem? Should we be forming a pressure
group?
I propose the Barbed-wire And Suchlike Total And Rapid Destruction Society (BASTARDS).
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