The Gravity-Defying Wall of St John’s: An Open Letter to Cheshire East Council

 OPEN LETTER TO CHESHIRE EAST COUNCIL.

What ho, my stalwart defenders of public services!

I write to inform you of my serious concerns for the health and well-being of my fellow Bollington folk.

Whilst attending to my duties in St John’s Churchyard on Church Street, I noticed that a large section of the cemetery wall has suffered a catastrophic mid-life crisis.

From Church Street itself, the top stones look perfectly orderly. However, from the side where all the dead people are, you can see that the wall's internal organs have completely spilled out into the grass.

The top coping stones are currently defying gravity like a stone-mason's game of Jenga, and the only thing holding the middle together appears to be some very load-bearing weeds. If it lets go entirely, it may end up adding some unsuspecting pedestrians to the churchyard's population.

Being a man of science, I asked the great calculation machines to assess the statistical likelihood of this specific wall injuring someone. The official Googlewack Risk Assessment Report is as follows:

📋 THE GOOGLEWACK RISK ASSESSMENT REPORT

• Odds of being killed by a generic wall in the UK: 1 in 34,000,000. (Statistically, you are three times more likely to be struck by lightning).

• Odds of this specific Bollington wall completely giving up: 1 in 1. (Gravity remains undefeated).

• Odds of the Church of England fixing it: 1 in 500,000,000. (They no longer use the building and are presumably praying it holds out until a buyer inherits the liability).

So, Cheshire East, I guess it’s possible your risk-assessment spreadsheets already know about this but have filed it under "Tomorrow's Problem" because the national odds are so low.

Bollington Town Council lacks the remit to act, so the buck stops with you. While it might not be a high-priority risk to human life today, when those top stones inevitably decide to visit the pavement below, it is going to cost a hell of a lot more to clear the highway, close the road, and rebuild it from scratch.

I would appreciate a word or two of acknowledgement and some indication of what, if anything, you’re going to do about our floating wall.

Yours in foolery,

Gabblewack