There were lots of things that scared the hell out of me when I was little: earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanoes, tarantulas, and then perhaps the more likely things, in our corner of Kent, like the idea occurring to me of my mother dying. Then there were the books and pictures I came across on the shelves around the house. One of these which left a lasting impression was a volume of Hieronymus Bosch paintings - scenes of giant men cut in half with little demons sticking pitchforks into them. They held a horrible fascination for me.

When on a walking holiday in the Wildschonau in the Austrian Tyrol this summer, I popped into a small chapel at the side of the parish church in Oberau and found a series of truly gruesome depictions of the hell that awaited unrepentant sinners. Blimey, I bet these kept the congregation in line!

But for all the representations of the Devil and his works that mankind has pictured, surely the only true manifestation of evil on our beautiful planet is when human self-will runs riot. Events in the world so far this year have led many of us to wring our hands in despair -“What can we do about it?” But surely, each of us can do something, however small, each day, right now. For example, the Romanian nurse who, though very busy, gave her full attention to kindly soothing and aiding my mother yesterday when Mum, suffering from a chest infection, couldn’t breathe properly. 

It always surprises me when people say that if there is a God, how can he let things like famine, war, natural disasters and pestilence happen? Well, disasters and disease are part of the natural world, surely, and as for the other two - it’s not a Higher Being, surely, who hoards more food than he needs, who adjusts the price on the market so he can get a higher profit, or appropriates more than her fair share?

​Just saying.

This summer on holiday in Niederau in the Austrian Tyrol I was amused to read the above sign put up by an exasperated farmer. It reads: This is my cows’ salad-bowl, not your dogs’ loo!  In that part of the world, there are still farms in the middle of villages, even towns, and our hotel was right next to this small area of pasture. The hotel allowed guests to bring their pet dogs, so perhaps some owners had been allowing them to soil the grass.

This week I went out with my trusty poop-scoop to pick up several small turds (to use a time-honoured English word), which an irresponsible dog-owner had neglected to remove after allowing their dog to defecate on the pavement. Further up the street, outside the home of a lady whose multiple sclerosis means she has to get about assisted by a mobile scooter, was a larger pile, right in front of her gate. Bad enough, you might think, that she has to steer her scooter out on to the road occasionally when thoughtless car-owners have parked their car across the pavement... (anyone remember that brilliant GLC infomercial from the 1980s featuring an old lady kicking a car off the pavement?).

Across from us, there’s been a running battle going on between a resident and an anonymous dog owner who leaves little plastic bags containing dog poo, neatly tied up, at the base of a lamp-post. Polite printed notices are pinned up, asking for them to be taken away, which only elicit more offerings. Who, for goodness sake, would do this? it’s hard to imagine exactly what form of sociopathy leads someone to leave health hazardous filth in their wake to be slipped on, smeared on passing pushchair wheels, children’s shoes etc. I guess it must be down, in the main, to sheer ignorance.

I’ll finish on a confession. When I was very small (maybe two?) I climbed up on to a wide window-sill and left a little present behind a vase. I can see it now. Perhaps I’d been caught short, or perhaps I was influenced by the tales my older brothers had told me about the witch who lived down the toilet bowl and came up when you pulled the chain!  Anyhow, I remember thinking that no-one would ever know it was me, or they would think our  Shetland Sheepdog  had left it.  I can’t remember the outcome, but it can’t have taken Sherlock Holmes to work out who had done the evil deed!