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A Lovely Walk Spoiled
Dear Editor,
On the last night of June, I decided to take a walk across the fields from Millstone Lane to Queniborough which was even more pleasant than usual due to the setting sun reflecting off the crops and long grasses along the way.
The return journey was however badly marred by two separate dog walkers who were also using the same footpath. The first incident occurred when a dog that was not on a lead decided on harassing me by chasing after me and even when the owner chastised the dog it still came back for more. The owner apologised but by then my pleasant walk was no longer.
The second incident was more alarming. As I walked on the footpath between the new houses, a couple approached in the opposite direction with four dogs on leads. One of the dogs spotted me from a distance and instantly became very aggressive. As I got closer the dog strained on its long lead and no doubt would have attacked me but fortunately the path was wide and I was able to side step to avoid this. Clearly if this had happened on the narrow field footpath then no doubt there would not have been enough room to side step and I would have ended up in A&E (or even worse)! What was most alarming was that the owner appeared to be completely dis-interested in what was happening, merely commenting to the other walker that the dog was “pulling on it’s leads”. There was no mention to me of “Oh I’m sorry are you all right”, let alone a simple apology for her dogs behaviour.
Clearly this type of behaviour by a minority of dogs and their walkers is never going to stop, so any suggestions (through this paper) from other interested parties i.e. the police or town council would be welcome on how I can legally protect myself should a dog actually attack me in future.
A frightened 67 year old.

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Santander – Last bank closed!
Dear Editor,
Now they’ve all deserted us, make sure we use the High Street Post Office when we need to access banking services.
Also, if you need access to cash from your account, Tesco, Wilko, Aldi all have free to use ATM’s.
I feel for the older residents of Syston who now have to travel to Birstall (three banks) or Belgrave.
Keep smiling,
J. Moult