Sir, – However we may feel about the strimmer, its usefulness cannot be denied. However, the prize for the daftest item of gardening kit must surely go to the leaf-blower. In the autumn, you see men in the local parks and cemeteries using these things to shift the fallen leaves from the paths on to adjacent beds and borders.
Fine if they stayed there, but autumn is seldom without its gales, which generally return the leaves to where they started. Once there, they rot down, to the great peril of pedestrians.
Possibly this is a result of the modern idea whereby to require a workman to do anything which causes his spine to deviate from the vertical incurs the wrath of the rights industry. A broom, shovel and wheelbarrow may not be high-tech, but at least they’re quiet and efficient, and a source of excellent exercise. – Yours, etc,
PAUL GRIFFIN,
Merseyside,
UK.