Reginald Pottle, 74, of Woking, was arrested on Tuesday afternoon after a neighbour reported him “peeling the bin” with a fish slice. The bin, a standard-issue wheelie, belonged to Mrs. Daphne Crumb, who had watched from her kitchen window as Pottle, in his gardening tweeds, carefully removed the grey plastic coating in long, methodical strips. “He was humming a hymn,” she told police. “I thought he was shelling peas.” Pottle was found with a Tupperware box, labelled “Treasures”, containing 47 strips of bin skin, and a small sherry in his hip flask, which he offered to the arresting officer. “I was merely revealing its true nature,” he said.
The peeling of the bin
The arrest was made by PC Derek Frobisher, who later admitted he “had no idea” peeling a bin was an offence, but “the paperwork was already done”. Pottle was taken to Woking police station, where he refused to answer questions until he had finished his sherry. He then gave a 45-minute lecture on the history of the wheelie bin, which he described as “the last bastion of British craftsmanship”. The bin, he claimed, was originally “British Racing Green”, but had been “defiled” by a grey plastic coating applied in 1998. “I was restoring it,” he said. “To its former glory.” Mrs. Crumb, meanwhile, had called the council, who sent environmental health officer Nigel Stubbs. Stubbs, a man of no humour, declared the bin a “public nuisance of the first order” and ordered a hazardous materials team to assess the peeling, which had revealed a “suspicious green substance” underneath.
A public nuisance of the first order
The hazardous materials team, led by Dr. Yvonne Plimsoll, found traces of lead in the green paint, dating from the 1970s. “This is a serious health risk,” she told the Woking News. “If the peelings had been ingested, we could be looking at a major incident.” The council cordoned off the street, and Mrs. Crumb was advised to stay indoors. Pottle, meanwhile, was charged under Section 5 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, which prohibits “any act that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress”. The charge sheet described the peeling as “malicious” and “premeditated”, noting that Pottle had been seen “practising” on his own bin the previous week. “He peeled that one clean,” said PC Frobisher. “We found it in his shed, looking like a skeleton.”
Your correspondent has been asked, once more, to pronounce upon the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, and she shall, at length, because somebody must. It is a piece of legislation so broadly drawn that it criminalises the very act of being alive in a suburb, and so vaguely worded that one could be arrested for looking at a bin, let alone peeling it. The Act is a shew of municipal cowardice dressed as public protection. It is an insult to the common law, to the concept of nuisance, and to the Englishman’s ancient right to be left alone with his own wheelie bin. Your correspondent stood outside Woking police station, in the drizzle, with a small sherry, and wept.
The trial of the bin man
The trial, held at Guildford Crown Court, lasted three days. Pottle, representing himself, called expert witnesses, including a retired bin manufacturer who confirmed that the original colour of the 1974 bin charter was indeed “British Racing Green”. He also presented a 300-page manual, “The Wheelie Bin: A Comprehensive Guide to Maintenance and Restoration”, which he had compiled over 20 years. The judge, His Honour Judge Alistair Wainwright, listened patiently as Pottle explained that the grey coating was a “modern abomination” introduced by a “council of philistines”. In his summing up, the judge said: “Mr. Pottle, you have shewn a level of commitment to a wheelie bin that is, frankly, bewildering. But I cannot, in good conscience, find you guilty of a crime when your only intention was to restore a piece of municipal history.” He acquitted Pottle, but ordered him to attend a “bin appreciation” course, to be run by the council’s waste management department.
And here, as the sherry warms in one’s hand, a curious thing occurs. Your correspondent, who has spent the better part of three decades despising the small, the petty and the municipal, finds herself rather taken with Mr. Pottle. He is not a vandal. He is a man of conviction, a man who saw a bin and thought not of refuse but of heritage. In a nation that has surrendered its railways, its pubs and its manners to the blandishments of progress, here is a soul who refused to let a wheelie bin go quietly into the grey. One might almost call him the last true Englishman.
Heritage asset and bin festival
The bin, now stripped of its grey coating and revealing the original green, was declared a “heritage asset” by the Woking and District Historical Society. Mrs. Crumb was offered a grant of £2,000 to have the bin restored to its “authentic 1974 condition”. She has refused, saying she “just wants a normal bin”. Pottle, meanwhile, has become a local celebrity. He was invited to open the Woking Bin Festival, where he gave a speech on the “spiritual decay of modern refuse management”. “We have lost the connexion between man and his waste,” he told the crowd. “We treat our bins as mere receptacles, when they are, in fact, the last repository of our national soul.” The crowd, mostly bin enthusiasts, applauded. Mrs. Crumb, who attended, was heard to mutter, “He’s still a nuisance.” Pottle, now 75, has announced plans to write a sequel to his manual, focusing on the “art of bin appreciation”. He has also applied for a grant to have Mrs. Crumb’s bin listed as a Grade II listed structure. The council is considering the application. The weather, as ever, is closing in.
