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The spectator’s notes

Charles Moore

Wednesday, 21st November 2007

Charles Moore's thoughts on the events of the week

David West is 80 years old. Last month he was travelling on a train, carrying the axe he uses to chop wood. At Carlisle station he was surrounded by four policemen who escorted him off the train. On the platform, they asked him whether the axe was his and what it was for. ‘It’s for splitting logs,’ he said. Didn’t he realise, they went on, that it was a dangerous weapon? ‘But it’s a heavy axe,’ he replied, ‘and there is no room to swing it between the seats.’ The police became angry: ‘You should not be flippant. You could spend the night in the cells. You could be debarred for life from the British railways system. What is your occupation?’ ‘Retired.’ ‘What was your job?’ ‘Professor of Latin at Newcastle University.’ At this point, the police gave each other sidelong glances and asked Prof. West whether he had any dangerous implements in his haversack. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a small axe.’ Then the police emptied the professor’s haversack on the platform, and separated from his pyjamas, spongebag etc. his hand-axe: ‘What is this for?’ ‘The big heavy axe is for splitting logs and this one is for chopping kindling.’ The police confiscated both axes and left Prof. West on the platform at ten at night, too late to get another train. He was stranded, but got hold of an old friend and fellow classicist in the neighbourhood, who put him up for the night. They cheered themselves up by talking about humour in Virgil’s Second Eclogue into the early hours. In a recent column in the Daily Telegraph I quoted the excellent policy of the railway companies on travelling with dangerous objects, ‘It’s not the item: it’s the behaviour.’ The police seem to have another policy. By the way, Prof. West, the un-mad axeman, has just produced his latest book, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, published by Duckworth.

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