Sir, - It's 3 p.m. on an August Saturday in a quiet street, minutes from the city centre.
Pedestrian traffic is negligible while the occasional car passes. There are several unused parking spaces across from the street's main office building. This building has a loading bay for three vehicles outside its main entrance. Parked at one end of the loading bay is a small car. Parking in the loading bay ensures that no obstruction is created, in the unlikely event of more than a handful of cars wishing to use the street. As it is a Saturday, no loading will take place.
The calmness and serenity of the sunny afternoon are interrupted when a van bearing official markings pulls alongside the parked car. Two men in uniforms spring from the van and one of them begins taking photographs of the front, back, windscreen and interior of the small car. Their purpose is to clamp the wheel of the small car, immobilising it.
This little scene occurred at Golden Lane in Dublin. Could some of your readers please tell me that there is a third good reason why this should happen other than my own two explanations which are: (a) George Orwell got it wrong by 15 years; or (b) I am living in a time/place warp and those were not Bardas Atha Cliath badges but swastikas on the arms of the two uniforms.
I should add that I have no idea who owned the silver Ford Ka but they have every right to ask why a parking ticket would not have sufficed for their transgression. The rest of us have the right to ask how it has come to this. - Yours, etc.,
Tim Healy, Killarney Road, Bray, Co Wicklow.