Daily Mail - 19.08.2019

Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019 Page 17

T

he most important

thing about a house is

its garden. The most

important thing about a

garden is seclusion. For

me, it has to be somewhere the

children can play in absolute

security when they are little, and

where you can relax safe from

prying eyes when you are not

so little.

That’s why, when I learned I was going

to be a father again at the ridiculous age

of 57, I bought the house I have lived in

for the past 20 years.

It had the perfect garden, surrounded

by Victorian brick walls still as sturdy as

they were when they were built almost

200 years ago. The wall at the bottom

was topped by a wooden fence, which

was covered in thick ivy.

I have always been one of those

gardeners who lets nature get on with

it. I defend it on the basis that there’s

no such thing as a weed — just a wild

flower in the wrong place. And in my

garden there’s no such thing as the

wrong place.

I call it being in touch with nature.

Others might call it sheer laziness. But

the birds and the bees and the frogs love

it, and so did I.

You will notice the past tense in that

sentence. For part of my garden’s appeal

has been tarnished by what happened

the other day.

The kitchen at my home in West

London looks out onto the garden, and I

was in there talking on the phone to a

local mother who wanted me to make a

little speech at her daughter’s school.

That’s when I noticed something

strange: the fence had disappeared —

smashed to the ground and the mass of

ivy with it.

A second later, a man came into view

from behind a large shrub. he had

obviously not seen me. he looked around

furtively and advanced towards the

kitchen. It was pretty obvious what

he had in mind.

What I did next surprised even me. I

dropped the phone (Lord knows what

my neighbour must have made of it),

uttered a word I would definitely not

have used at the school prize-giving and

wrenched open the kitchen door.

As I did so, I spotted a pair of garden

by John Humphrys

secateurs

secateurs on a shelf below the

kitchen worktop. I grabbed them

and tore out into the garden,

running straight at the intruder.

I was gripping the secateurs in

my fist as though they were a

broadsword and I was part of an

attacking militia. I was barely

aware that I was screaming at the

man, demanding to know what

the hell he was doing in my garden

and telling him what I would do to

him if he didn’t clear off pronto.

S

O FAr, so stupid. I

should have been scared,

and then I should have

locked the kitchen door

and dialled 999. The intruder was

half my age, bearded, wearing a

hoodie and more than a match

for me physically.

The last time I was engaged in

physical combat was with my

two brothers, and I ended up with

a broken collarbone. And that

had been a friendly romp in the

living room when we were

celebrating my elder son’s first

solo appearance as a cellist.

The last time I actually punched

anyone was when I was 22. he was

a fellow reporter and he’d stolen

my camera pitch when we were

waiting to film the Queen arriving

in Cardiff. I’m pretty sure it hurt

me much more than it hurt him.

The truth is that nobody in the

darkest of dark alleys could

confuse me with Mike Tyson. But

I was not scared when I saw the

intruder in the garden — and

that’s what was really scary.

I have tried to tell myself since

then that I could never have

actually used the secateurs to

stab him, but I can’t be 100 per

cent certain of that. It is truly

extraordinary how many feelings

the brain is capable of processing

simultaneously when you’re under

extreme stress.

The experts tell us nature

equipped humans to be able to

cope with fear. Our brains are

designed to send out powerful

hormones and signals to our

bodies to give us the energy to

run. Or the power to fight.

I can understand that now. It

explains why a soldier who is

wounded on the battlefield and

still coming under lethal fire is

capable of charging into the

enemy’s guns. It might even

explain why I thought I might be

capable of attacking a man who

might possibly present a threat to

me and the security of my home.

In those few seconds, I even

tried to imagine what stabbing

somebody might feel like and how

much force I might put behind it.

What if I were to hurt him

seriously? What if, God forbid, I

were to kill him!

Old newsman that I am, I

remembered the many stories I

had reported on in which house-

holders had ended up in court for

attacking intruders and, in a few

notorious cases, killing them.

Part of my rational brain told me

I was simply incapable of doing

any such thing. I abhor violence. I

have never so much as slapped

one of my children.

But the other part was calculat-

ing how I would react if the man

had grabbed the secateurs from

me and the tables were turned.

Thank God, the intruder seemed

just as surprised at my appear-

ance in the garden as I had been

at his. he stood his ground for a

few seconds, then turned and ran,

using the wrecked fence and mass

of ivy to get over the wall.

I chased after him, but stopped

at the wall and watched him

disappear. And only then did the

red mist fade and I dialled 999.

N

Or was this the only

time I have confronted

a burglar. The last

time it was about

midnight and I was sound asleep

in a top-floor bedroom. There was

no one else in the house and I was

woken by the landing light being

switched on.

Again, I reacted instinctively,

made my voice as deep as I could,

growled something like “F***

you!” and leaped out of bed —

naked as the day I was born.

Thank God he, too, fled. But again

I was very stupid.

I chased him down three flights

of stairs and stopped only when

he ran across the broken glass

from the door that he’d smashed

to get in, and from there out into

the street.

When the police arrived, they

pointed to the large bread knife

the burglar had passed on his way

upstairs. They didn’t need to say

anything and nor did they need to

point out the risk I had taken.

I got the message.

And if it happens again? I

honestly don’t know how I will

react. I tell myself that it will be

different. But how can I — how

can anyone — be sure?

Within hours of the confronta-

tion in my garden, my anger had

been replaced with a feeling

almost of sympathy for the

intruder. he must have been

pretty desperate to do what he

had done.

he certainly looked as if he

needed a good meal. Maybe a

better man than me would have

invited him in, perhaps given him

a meal and even helped him make

a new start in life.

Maybe. But what I know for

sure is that there is a fine line

between that humane approach

and the almost primitive

instinct to protect hearth

and home.

A dangerously fine line.

‘At least I wasn’t naked like the

last time I confronted an intruder!’

The

day

I took

on a

burglar...

with a pair of