Home   News   Article

Subscribe Now

Hunstanton columnist’s musings on wasp bites, paper, fireworks and slaughterhouses




Here’s the latest Turnstone column by Hunstanton writer John Maiden…

I discovered at a very early age just how powerful a wasp 'bite' can be when one of the little blighters chose to share the apple I was eating. The first thing I felt was its tiny jaws taking a bite out of my tongue, swiftly followed by a powerful 'sting' on my lower lip, caused when I spat out the apple and wasp in the same reflex action. This taught me to treat all creatures, especially flying insects, with the respect they deserve for all the important work they do in terms of crop pollination.

It is fairly well known that while bees build their nests with wax, wasps use papier-mâché made of wood scraped from nearby surfaces and chewed into a pulp. Each tiny mouthful is pasted in place and carefully shaped using their mandibles and antennae. We had a wasp nest made of this delicate paper in the roof space of our house at Heacham, which we left in place until long after the wasps had chosen to leave, and I did not get stung once.

Should fireworks be banned? asks columnist John Maiden
Should fireworks be banned? asks columnist John Maiden

The Chinese are credited with learning how to make paper, but I cannot believe they were not stung into action by observing the nests created by wasps. This leaves me wondering what it was that prompted the Chinese to invent gunpowder. Historians seem to suggest that it was the Europeans who were first to exploit its potential for making weapons of war more lethal. Any suggestion that modern weapons can be used specifically to target military personnel, thereby avoiding women and children, has been thoroughly refuted by the dreadful slaughter of the innocent in Gaza and elsewhere in the wider world.

It might be a very small step on a really long journey, but it is surely time to ban fireworks? Living in a quiet residential area of Hunstanton, I was amazed that it was necessary for us to turn up Jools Holland, so that our cats did not have to dive for cover under the furniture every two minutes, for a good half hour, either side of welcoming in the new year. Our cats are lucky, but what about all the abandoned animals and wildlife, which must be terrified every new year and every Guy Fawkes night?

While on the subject of frightened animals, I was disgusted when reading the Lynn News coverage of the two pregnant sows, which were cruelly butchered by trespassers, before being stolen from a farm that regularly rears up to 1,000 pigs for food. However, possibly because I am a vegan, I cannot help remembering the two high-profile resignations from the RSPCA because its ‘Freedom Food’ does not always meet the high standards of animal welfare set for farmers.

When it comes to ending the short lives of animals reared for their meat, I have vivid memories of a day spent in a Norfolk slaughterhouse, observing production lines of cattle and pigs being transformed from sentient creatures into meat. My reaction reminded me of a young man from a pig farming family, who came home one day to hear the runt of a litter, which he had reared by hand, having its throat cut. He never ate meat again and soon became a vegan. Please excuse this sting in the tail of today's Turnstone, but this is Veganuary after all.



This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies - Learn More