Hole in the wall

The site of what started life as the Epsom County Secondary Schools and ended life with quite a lot of years' service as the Lintons Community Centre (the venue for some years for BH's keep fit classes), has now been housed over.

At the start of the housing over, a smart new fence was erected to divide the new estate from the housing at the bottom of Lintons Lane and, probably more important, from the tunnel under the railway to ScrewFix and the Longmead Estate beyond. A tunnel which clearly gets the attention of some of the more disreputable youth of the borough - see reference 1 for some of the ups and downs on this front. And off snap to the right is the field which was home to the horse which was probably owned by one of our area's travellers - see reference 2 for one of the various notices of same.

Someone has now seen fit to open the fence up. Perhaps the residents of the new estate are fans of Screwfix? But will they come to regret the opening up, with said disreputables spilling out of their usual territory to make their marks? Perhaps they will be bringing their pit bulls with them. Will the council be petitioned to pay for a gate which is unlocked at dawn and locked at dusk, in the way of some of our park gates?

PS: the secondary schools were unusual in that segregation of the sexes was organised vertically, rather than what I had thought was the more usual horizontally, as it was, for example, at Chesterton Secondary Modern in Cambridge, an establishment where, as it happened, my mother taught for some years. With a high chain link fence, maybe nine feet high, separating the boys from the girls. Smoking behind the shed was one thing; fraternising with the other sex in school time, quite another.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=tunnel+screwfix.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=st+paul+horselet.