The Mike Lockley Column: I'm the new Clint Eastwood after nabbing parish burglar

May 24 2009 by Mike Lockley, Sunday Mercury

You read it here first…

My wife and I – more my wife, actually – have caught the man responsible for breaking into our property and numerous other households and businesses in our sleepy parish.

We have already been interviewed by a breathless young hack from the local paper who asked, bluntly, if I considered myself a hero.

That’s not for me to say, I told the girl.

“Fair enough,” she sighed, drawing a line through the page of her notebook, “we’ll scrub that angle.”

“No, no,” I blurted, “use it if you must. I know how you people love buzz-words.”

I learnt that to my cost from the caption under the picture that accompanied the charity pub quiz article: ‘‘Mike Lockley: Clueless.’’

I could have sued... if it wasn’t factually accurate.

“And what do you say,” she added, scribbling frantically, “to all those people who have hailed your actions as an act of selfless bravery?”

‘‘Errr, can I have a reward please?’’

We spotted the felon striding up a dirt track, gave chase and lost him in a coppice. I inadvertently trod on the criminal as he cowered under a clump of fern, gave a girly shriek, then shinned, panic-stricken, up a tree.