Liddle Britain

‘How can I steal a motorbike?’

27 January 2007

Rod Liddle observes a beautiful microcosm of British society on Branscombe beach, as slavering chavs and media monkeys make the most of a shipwreck

Beyond the news crews is a thin grey line of local middle-class people who have come to watch the scavenging chavs and media monkeys with expressions of ironic disdain and Labrador dogs. And beyond all this, marooned out at sea, still chock-full of cars and motorbikes and dog food and untold treasures, tantalisingly close but now patrolled by a security boat, lies the progenitor of this wonderful vignette, the freighter MSC Napoli. It got into trouble in the rough weather over the weekend and part of its cargo has subsequently spilled on to Branscombe Beach. That’s why we’re all here, to take advantage of this bounty, in some form or another.

It is, in one sense, nothing more than a giant — and rather good value — alfresco branch of Argos. In another, though, it is a beautiful microcosm of British society. ‘Oh look at them, David — what could they possibly want with that?’ one ghastly ice-veined matron remarked in dismay to her husband, watching a couple of lads drag at least 100 car air-bag devices across the beach on a piece of tarpaulin. And David shook his head and the police and security guards looked on either ineffectually or good-naturedly, depending upon your point of view. And the news crews, as one, began their reports with a quick reference to Whisky Galore, before getting all sententious.

I arrived too late to get the really good stuff to flog on eBay, although a bloke from Stoke told me that high winds meant that maybe some more BMW motorbikes (market value on eBay about 10,000 quid) might float ashore quite soon. I met a woman who knew a man who’d rustled away one of the motorbikes; rumours of incredible bounty abounded all day and it was enough to keep hundreds pilfering from the wrecked containers and looking out at the Napoli with longing. On the first day of the wreck, it was thousands, according to the security people.

The police told all the people to stay away, although they had no real legal jurisdiction to do so — and so still they came. The official Receiver of Wreck, Sophie Exelby, insisted on the television news that all items remained the property of the rightful owners and that people who took things needed to fill out a form. Yeah, as they say, right, Sophe. Hobbled by impotence, the police and the security guards employed by the Napoli’s insurance company didn’t know quite what to do; they couldn’t actually prevent anyone doing anything.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, when I arrived, to one guard standing by the fence which his colleagues had erected across the beach, ‘what is the quickest way down to the beach to steal a large motorbike from one of those containers, please?’

He did not even blink at the irony. ‘Take that footpath over there,’ he said, helpfully pointing out a path along the cliff, ‘and cut down by the side of that concrete building. Then you’re on the beach proper.’