My wife and I, accompanied by my nine year old nephew, arrived to begin a weeks holiday in Tideswell. We had arranged to rent Mabel’s cottage on Sherwood Road from 2 December.
On the Wednesday we had planned to drive to Birmingham to visit relatives but noticed that we had two flat tyres on the kerb side of our vehicle, together with a long gouge in the paint work. I immediately informed the police and the cottage owners. I went to Ashford Garage and explained my problem. George told me that he would come down as soon as possible and try and inflate the tyres. I walked back to the cottage and found the police already there. The officer made some enquiries of people living nearby and then left. George arrived and found that both tyres had been punctured deliberately with a sharp object such a dart or sharp screwdriver. He took the vehicle to his garage and told us he would try and get two new tyres and fix them by mid morning the next day. The cost was about 200 pounds. We have always tried to visit cottages in the villages not the towns in the UK and this was the first time that we had experienced such a shocking act of vandalism. Why were we targeted? It was obvious that no other local car parked either side of mine was vandalized . This was clearly a message that “visitors are not welcomed” in that part of Tideswell. If I had parked in a space which someone felt was theirs, they could have asked me to move. This person is a vindictive,malicious and mean spirited character who effectively ruined a weeks holiday in a nice Derbyshire village. We will not be coming back and neither will any of our friends. We have also alerted the cottage letting agents that other visitors will likely expect similar treatment if they park their cars in this area. Acts like this taint the whole village,but of course most folk would be shocked that this could happen here I notice that the shop keepers in the village are already struggling for custom, and for visitors to experience this type of vandalism will surely only add to their economic woes.
Mike Vaughan, OAP