Letter: On the Census, From Waraich & Sons
To the Editor of the Gazette,
I read with interest the report of Tuesday’s Council meeting and the matter of the count. The Mayor spoke of the conventional method, and was very fair about it. The Committee spoke of being answerable for people, which I took to mean people who use the sluice. I would like to offer a third category.
I am answerable for everyone who has bought a paper from my shop in the last eleven years. Some of them are no longer with us. Some have moved away and write to me at Christmas. Some send their children. I keep a list. It is not a Council list and it is not a Drainage Committee list. It is a corner-shop list, which is, in its way, more accurate than either, because it is updated when someone moves away.
My count, as of yesterday, is three hundred and twelve. Of these, two hundred and nine buy the Gazette regularly. The rest buy something else and take a paper with it.
I do not expect the Council to adopt my figure. But I would like it noted that the corner shop is a kind of census, and that I am keeping one.
Yours, etc.,
Hardeep Singh Waraich
Waraich & Sons, Old Car Road, Morrowfen.
The Editor notes that the figure of three hundred and twelve includes part-year residents and excludes anyone who has not, in the last eleven years, set foot in the shop. Mr Waraich accepts this.
Letters to the Editor are printed with full voice preservation. Spelling and punctuation are the author’s own. The Gazette does not take sides in the census dispute.