legends · 4 min read ·
Letters Page
A local newspaper's letters page follows a street that hears footsteps at ten to six, and receives stones.
**THE MERRIDALE GAZETTE — LETTERS**
*Week of 4 October.*
**Bin collection.** Sir, I write to complain at the new arrangements for refuse collection in Tannery Close, where the recycling lorry now comes at six in the morning. The noise is intolerable. One is woken by what sounds like a great many people walking. I trust the council will review the matter. — Mrs. J. Whitcombe, Tannery Close.
**Dog fouling.** Sir, I must ask the owner of the large pale dog in Orchard Walk to keep it on a lead. It is not, I think, a dog. — R. Hanley.
· · ·
*Week of 11 October.*
**Footsteps.** Sir, Mrs. Whitcombe is quite right about the early morning noise, but she is mistaken about the cause. I walk the Close each morning for my health and I can assure her that no lorry comes before eight. The sound she describes occurs at ten to six, in the street, outside the windows. It is a great many people walking slowly in the same direction. No one is there. I have counted. They go from the junction towards the old tannery site, and they take six minutes. — Mr. D. Prior.
**Reply.** Sir, with respect to Mr. Prior, I did not say there were no people. I said I heard them. I have since looked out. In the dawn I could see the pavements, and the gutters, and the lamp post, and I could see the frost forming on the road in the shape of their feet. — Mrs. J. Whitcombe.
· · ·
*Week of 18 October.*
**The old tannery.** Sir, in the matter of the footsteps, may I offer some local history? The site of the tannery on Hide Lane was, before 1910, the burial ground for the parish workhouse. The graves were cleared when the works were built. The records I have seen are incomplete. The count of those cleared was given as three hundred and twelve. Records of the original interments suggest nearer seven hundred. — Dr. A. Fenn, Local History Society.
**Sir,** I should like to say that the walking is not unpleasant. It is rather companionable. I have taken to opening the window. — Miss E. Garrard, Tannery Close.
· · ·
*Week of 25 October.*
**Sir,** A word to Miss Garrard. Please do not open the window. — Mr. D. Prior.
**Sir,** I should like to respond to Mr. Prior's note. Last night I counted them again, from my front step. There were more than before. They have begun to turn at the old tannery and come back the other way. They are not walking away from something. They are looking for it. — Mrs. J. Whitcombe.
**Sir,** I cannot let this correspondence go on without recording that several households on the Close, myself among them, found a small stone on the doorstep this week. A smooth grey pebble, each the size of a hen's egg, with no mark on it. I put mine on the sill. — Mr. P. Sorley.
· · ·
*Week of 1 November.*
**Pebbles.** Sir, I have learned, by asking round, that every house on the Close received one. Every house but Number 9, which is empty. Not one house has thrown theirs away. I do not believe we could if we tried. They return. — Mrs. J. Whitcombe.
**Sir,** Number 9 is not empty. I have lived there thirty years. No pebble came to my step and I have been very grateful. But I should like to ask my neighbours not to put theirs on the shared wall at the back, where they have begun to line up in a row. Mine is the only wall without them. — Mr. H. Aziz.
· · ·
*Week of 8 November.*
**Sir,** The row of stones on the back wall has now gone all the way round the Close. It is a neat, unbroken ring. A friend with a drone has photographed it. From above it is exactly the outline of the tannery's foundations, drawn on the ground in pebbles, with a small gap at the north, where the door was. — Dr. A. Fenn.
**Sir,** To Mr. Aziz at Number 9. You are, I believe, the last. They have come to the gap. Please look out of your window at ten to six on the morning of the fifteenth, when you hear us, and open the door. We would like to be counted. — Mrs. J. Whitcombe, Miss E. Garrard, Mr. P. Sorley, Mr. D. Prior and all of Tannery Close.
· · ·
*Week of 15 November.*
*The Gazette regrets that the letters page does not appear this week.*
*The Gazette also regrets to report that Tannery Close was found to be unoccupied on Thursday morning. Doors were unlocked. Kettles were warm. A single stone lay on the doorstep of each house, and on the step of Number 9, a ninth, larger, the size of a fist, with the tail of a pale thread wound round it, in the way you tie a parcel.*