Drunken prank was not a slur!

REGARDING your front page article in the October 19 edition of the Dunmow Broadcast.

It should be pointed out that the Village Memorial has been damaged and not destroyed and the young man who did the damage is still in hospital with a badly broken ankle needing skin grafts.

He intends to apologise for his action as soon as he is able to attend a parish council meeting.

He has already made it clear that this was a drunken prank and was never intended to be a slur on the 40 names inscribed on the memorial.

The War Memorial is owned and maintained by Finchingfield Parish Council and was recently cleaned in time for our May fair.

It was erected in 1920 (three years before the Finchingfield branch of

The Royal British Legion was formed).

It was paid for by public subscription at a cost of £268 14s and 2p. A very considerable sum in those days.

As a parish councillor, I do not condone what happened under any circumstances and there are others like myself.

But in an era when refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions appears to be normal behaviour, the action of the young man together with his sister and his friends who have raised nearly £300, which will go to our Freshwell Health Centre and his father, a stone mason, who has offered to repair the memorial at his own expense is a welcome change in a society which increasingly appears to be losing it's moral values.

Finchingfield does not need a searchlight shining on it's actions, it is perfectly capable of handling an incident such as this. It is hoped that will be the end of the matter.

Cllr George H Rice Finchingfield Parish Council