FOR DECADES he was known only as V/HN/302. During World War Two, he was part of a unit so secret that — even to this day — the identities of those involved remain shrouded in mystery. By day, he was the manager of a printers in Hughenden; by night, he worked to foil the Nazi war machine. In his desk was a pearl-handled pistol. Had the Germans invaded, and caught him, his orders were to shoot himself.

His name was Frank Staton, and he was a hero.

Now, over sixty years since the end of the war, his story — of double lives, resistance armies, and suspicious neighbours — can at last be told, thanks to unique records secretly kept by Staton and preserved by his granddaughter.

Much has been made in recent years of the astonishing work done at Bletchley Park, where Britain’s top minds decrypted intercepted Nazi messages. But few people know about the ragtag network of amateurs who intercepted those messages.

Without their formidable skill, and their unwavering loyalty to their country, history might have followed a very different course.

And yet nothing was ever officially disclosed about the work they did.

Frank Staton was born in Derby in 1892. He served in 9th Battalion the Cheshire Regiment during World War One, after which he went into the printing industry. Moving south to escape the Depression, he eventually became manager of Harrison and Sons on Coates Lane, Hughenden. As a young man, he developed an interest in building and operating crystal set radios, and with the callsign G2NS he would communicate with fellow radio hobbyists — or ‘hams’ — in Morse code.

In 1939, on the eve of war, MI5 set up a department — officially known as MI8c — responsible for detecting enemy radio transmissions. With neither the manpower nor expertise to fulfil its role, MI8c turned to Arthur Watts, President of the Radio Society of Great Britain. The RSGB was a nationwide network of hams — people like Frank Staton. On Watts’ suggestion, many, including Staton, became ‘Voluntary Interceptors’. The Radio Security Service was born.

The RSS was initially tasked with uncovering German spies, who were suspected of broadcasting intelligence from the UK and placing radio beacons for the Luftwaffe. By March 1940 it became apparent that the only German spy in Britain was a double agent controlled by MI5. But Staton and his fellow VIs had proved themselves adept at probing enemy communications on the continent, and they were soon reassigned to MI6 with a new mission to intercept signals from Nazi secret agents in Europe. With their experience of detecting weak signals with homemade equipment, the VIs were able to intercept messages that no one else could.

Staton, like many, worked from home — in his case, Red Gables, Green Hill, Hughenden. In the front room of Red Gables was a roll-top desk which concealed an issued Marconi CR100 radio.

Logs of radio communications were sent by post to Arkley View, a country house in Barnet, where the mass of raw intelligence was sifted through for coded messages to be sent to Bletchley Park for decryption. Some was encoded by hand cipher; some was encoded with the famous Enigma machine.

The programme was a success. Before long, MI6 knew the workings of the Abwehr — the German Secret Service — in such detail that they were able to anticipate the arrival of almost all German spies, who would frequently land in Britain by parachute. Once apprehended, they were given a choice: They could work for the British as double agents, or they could be shot. Many chose execution.

But the success came at a price. Paranoia about a German attack had reached fever pitch by 1940, and VIs — who could often be heard listening to Morse code in the dead of night by their neighbours — were frequently arrested on suspicion of espionage. It became such a frequent occurence that VIs were given uniforms of the Royal Observer Corps — members of which detected and tracked enemy aircraft, and were required to possess radios — or in a few cases, the Special Constabulary. Staton was ostensibly both a Special Constable and a member of the ROC, when in reality he was neither. VIs were to avoid legitimate members of the ROC, as they would soon be rumbled as fakes and arrested.

In a twist of fate, Staton’s cover as a Special Constable involved him in the nighttime apprehension of a German spy, whose position would have been determined from the intelligence gathered by VIs. The spy had landed near RAF Bomber Command in Walters Ash. Finding it was one of Hitler’s top priorities.

As Staton and his fellow policemen, faces blackened, crawled through the ploughed field where he had landed, they discovered him transmitting Morse code back to Germany. The consequences, had he succeeded in broadcasting the location of Bomber Command, are grim to imagine.

Until late 1941, the threat of German invasion was real and imminent. As a VI in the Home North region — the ‘HN’ in his codename — Staton would have been on the front line, and his life expectancy would have dropped sharply had the Nazi army crossed the channel. If the worst happened and Staton was discovered, he was to destroy his equipment and logs before taking his own life to protect the secrecy of the RSS. He had a choice between cyanide and a bullet.

After the war, as life slowly returned to normality, the work of Staton and his fellow VIs remained secret for decades. The only official recognition was a carefully-worded commendation from Sir Herbert Creedy, the senior civil servant in the War Office. It read: “In the years when Civilisation was menaced with destruction F. Staton who served 1940 — 1945 gave generously of his time, power and technical skills in essential service to his Country.” Around 1500 of these certificates were presented at Albert Hall in 1946, but to an outsider the text meant nothing. Only a few certificates remain, providing rare clues as to the identity of the VIs.

Staton alone, with foresight, kept a few records of his involvement.

IT IS often said that World War Two was won at Bletchley Park, where German communications were decrypted — providing the Allies with essential intelligence with which to defeat the Nazi war machine.

But few people know the remarkable story of the people who intercepted those communications.

Frank Staton, the then middle-aged manager of a Hughenden-based printers, was one of them. He was a ‘Voluntary Interceptor’, or VI, and a member of the Radio Security Service, a unit so secret that its existence has never been officially acknowledged.

As a young man he had developed an interest in amateur radio, and with his expertise he was able to intercept faint Morse Code signals broadcast by German Secret Service agents spread across Europe.

Staton was one of between 1500 to 1700 VIs. We will never know the exact number, and records of their identities have never surfaced. The only recognition ever accorded them was a cryptically-worded citation from the War Office presented shortly after the war.But although the records — and with them an essential part of British history — were either never kept or never disclosed, Staton had the foresight to preserve photographs and documents. Now, decades later, the documents are at last coming to light, thanks to Staton’s granddaughter Evelyn Livett, who lives in Naphill.

Mrs Livett, 66, was born in 1941 in Red Gables in Hughenden — the house where Staton intercepted Nazi messages. She remembers her grandfather talking to her about the war as a child. But though Staton would talk to his family about his wartime activites, it was a secret to outsiders.

She said: “It was kept within our family for a long, long time. I was thinking about what to do with this, because I knew there was some importance. I kept Grandad’s papers together all the time, they were looked after. The secrecy of it, to a certain extent, stayed with us.”But in 2005, it was revealed that Hughenden Manor was — aside from the onetime home of Benjamin Disraeli — the top secret location where target maps of Europe were produced for the RAF. The men and women who had spent the war at Hughenden Manor — codenamed ‘Hillside’ — had remained quiet for decades.

When Mrs Livett visited an exhibition about the Manor’s wartime history, she decided it was time to share what she knew about the life of Frank Staton to prevent another piece of local history risking being lost forever.

The most significant record is a photograph of Staton and his fellow VIs taken in September 1942. He is present with his immediate superior, Ron Lunnon, and a visitor from another group named John Clarricoats. Other names are written: G. Sherry, Cooke, Forsyth, Rouse, Wilson. Though the list is incomplete, it offers clues to the identities of other VIs in the Wycombe area. Lunnon lived in Totteridge, where the photograph is likely to have been taken.

The group — unbeknownst to them, one of many across the country — met regularly in a cottage in Lily’s Walk in central Wycombe. Lily’s Walk would later be demolished to make way for the Octagon shopping centre, but during the war it was the location of the group’s headquarters.

Staton also kept the instructions — labelled ‘SECRET’ — issued to enable him to identify German Morse Code, which was characterised by a steady speed and a “good standard of operating”.

There is a tantalising clue to another part of Frank Staton’s story. The Auxiliary Units were a top secret resistance army formed from the civilian Home Guard in anticipation of an invasion, with operational patrols trained in guerrilla warfare and special duty sections to collect intelligence. After the war, Staton would often take his grandchildren to Hughenden Manor and point through the window of one of the outbuildings — a pre-war ice house — claiming there was a sliding panel concealing a room full of radio equipment.

Hidden bases with radios, food and weapons for the Auxiliary Units were scattered around the country with resources to last a fortnight — the life expectancy of the resistance. Could this have been one of them? An alcove at the back of the ice house extending under what is now the car park has been bricked up, but evidence remains that a door or a panel was installed at one stage.

As a VI, Staton would have had no business at Hughenden Manor, and yet he told his grandchildren that covert work was done there decades before Hughenden’s wartime history was publicly known. Clearly he was in a position to know more than most.

Inspiring though Staton’s story is, his is one of hundreds. Yet due recognition has never been paid to the army of volunteers of which he was a part, fighting a secret war of intelligence.

Until late 1941, the threat of German invasion was real and imminent. As a VI in the Home North region — the ‘HN’ in his codename, V/HN/302 — Staton would have been on the front line, and his life expectancy would have dropped sharply had the Nazi army crossed the channel.

The men who fought on the continent — including Staton’s son Stanley, who fought with the cavalry in Egypt and Italy — are rightly remembered as heroes.

Now, it is time to acknowledge the contribution of the men and women like Frank Staton who stayed home but risked all nonetheless — and did so freely.

A DEFIANT pensioner has vowed that he will go to prison before he pays a parking fine.

John Hern, 75, of Jordans, who is registered disabled, contested a Penalty Charge Notice he received after parking in the same bay that he had always parked in — without realising that it had temporarily become a bus stop.

He said: “I always used the disabled parking space at Frogmoor as I could leave the car there and hobble across to the Post Office.“At the time I was having trouble with my lower back and legs.”

He explained that he had not seen the parking restriction notice that had been put up: “When you're using crutches your eyes are on your feet. If I fell over I could do myself some damage.”

When he wrote to Bucks County Council explaining his mistake he was told that he would still have to pay the £60 fine. After a series of letters between the two parties, Mr Hern was told that he had a choice — he can pay the fine or make a formal representation to the council. If the council rejects his representation, he can then appeal to the National Parking Adjudication Service.

But Mr Hern said that he does not recognise the authority of the council or the NPAS to decide whether or not he should pay. He said: “They want to be judge, jury and prosecution.

“I will not be intimidated. I will offer myself up to the Queen's Justice, not a kangaroo court of the county council. I will plead my case in court — if they want to come down and take me to prison they can.”

Bucks County Council defended the fine, saying that the town had come to a complete gridlock in the first two days of the bay suspension in July due to drivers disobeying the rules. Parking Services Manager Anne-Marie Goodbody added that discretion in cancelling an fine could only be used if the driver had broken the rules “because of an emergency or an unavoidable occurrence”.

But Mr Hern criticised the council for the amount of money spent pursuing the ticket. He said: “What it has cost for them to generate all these letters and send them to me far outweighs the cost of the fine.”

When he asked to see a summary of the accounts of the Special Parking Area (SPA), he learnt that the council had lost almost £70,000 in 2006-7, having paid almost £650,000 to National Car Parks Ltd who enforce parking regulations on behalf of the council. The central government requires SPAs to be self-financing. Mrs Goodbody said: “The deficit of the High Wycombe Town SPA is due to the year on year increased cost of providing the service and the fact that the Pay and Display and Permit charges have not kept up with inflation.”

Mr Hern insisted he would not give up his fight. He said: “I'm retired, but not tired.”

FORMER Page 3 beauty Linda Lusardi will be taking the lead role in next year’s Wycombe Swan panto, following this winter’s record-breaking run of Cinderella.

The Emmerdale star, who started out as a topless model for the Sun in 1976, will be playing the part of wicked Queen Lucretia when she joins husband Sam Kane on stage in December.

The theatre has already sold 4,000 tickets to the performances.

But this year’s pantomime may be a tough act to follow — Cinderella, starring Brian Conley as Buttons, has been the most successful pantomime ever at the Wycombe Swan.

Though it ran for a week less than previous shows, almost 50,000 people have seen this year’s panto, which had its final performance on Sunday.

Wycombe Swan marketing manager Fjola Stenning said: “We have been inundated by remarks and comments telling us how much everyone has enjoyed the show.”

One unexpected star of the proceedings was Oliver James Mitchell, who was the first baby of 2008 to be born at Wycombe Hospital. Oliver was born at 7.37am on New Year's Day just hours after his mother Claire — who was watching the panto with her family — began having contractions during the performance.

Ms Stenning said: “What a way to make an entrance! Clearly tickled by the laughter and magic of pantomime Oliver was waiting in the wings and decided he wanted to join in the fun!

“We heartily recommend a trip to the theatre as a relaxing distraction from the anxiety of childbirth — much better than scrubbing floors or drinking raspberry leaf tea!”

The cast were thrilled to hear the news, with Brian Conley joking “just don’t call him Buttons! It’s a boy, not a puppet!” and Ugly Sisters Nigel Ellacott and Peter Robbins adding, “You see? Our pantomime really is a labour of love!”

The theatre extended an invitation to Oliver’s family to take a trip to the panto as their special guests on Oliver’s 4th birthday.

A MAN whose bicycle was stolen from High Wycombe train station has hit out at Chiltern Railways’ “flippant” response.

Tahir Parwez, 36, of High Wycombe, wrote to Chiltern Railways after he was told by them that it would take too much effort to review CCTV footage.

He received a reply telling him that he “may wish to consider using a bike of low value in the future as these are rarely taken.” But Tahir’s wheels cost just £100.

Like hundreds of others, Tahir, 36, commutes from High Wycombe to Marylebone five days a week. He acknowledged that ten hours of CCTV footage — the time between locking the bike up and returning to collect it — was a lot to sift through. But he said: “They had CCTV but they couldn’t be bothered to look at it.

“At the end of the day, if you’ve got CCTV, use it!”

The dad-of-one said he thought the risk of theft deterred people from cycling. He said: “I choose to walk or take my bike to keep my carbon footprint down. If I was a student and I couldn’t afford a new bike, it would be a real pain.

“I’m not looking for any sort of compensation. I just don’t want other people to have their property stolen because someone couldn’t be bothered to look at the CCTV.”

Tahir, who works as a sales manager for an IT company, said that he doubted he was the only victim. He noted that the thieves had lock-cutting equipment, suggesting an organised gang, and said: “How do you stop them? With CCTV!”

But though he had been angered to discover his bike was missing, it was the response from Chiltern Railways suggesting he buy a cheaper bike — “such a flippant remark” — that annoyed him the most.

RESIDENTS of a street in Wycombe have voiced their exasperation after drivers were fined en masse for breaking regulations, when the only alternative is to block access to emergency services.

Neighbours in Mayhew Crescent met with local councillors on Sunday, after dozens of cars were issued £30 fines for obstructing the pavement. Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) blanketed the street with warnings last Monday following six complaints about the pavement obstruction.

But many cars stayed put, with residents saying there is no other option, and PCSOs returned during the week to issue the tickets.Simon Taylor, who lives on Mayhew Crescent, received a fine on Friday evening. He said: “It’s crazy. If we tried to adhere to the law no fire engines or lorries would be able to get past us. There's always been a problem with parking, but the neighbours all have an understanding with each other as to who parks where.

“When we spoke to the PCSOs they couldn’t give us any suggestion as to how we should park our cars — they told us to take it up with the council.”

But Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC) may be unable to fix the problem until 2009. The council’s Parking Services Manager, John Charlton, explained that BCC is preparing to expand the Special Parking Area (SPA) — in which parking enforcement is the responsibility of the council rather than the police — from the centre of Wycombe to the entire district.

He said that BCC could not change parking regulations anywhere within the district until six months after the new SPA becomes operational — in summer 2008 at the earliest. Mr Charlton added: “They will need to contact the police.”

Mr Taylor, 47, said: “It just seems that the police and the council are passing the buck.”

In the meantime, dozens of residents are faced with a choice between paying a fine or taking on the system. Barry Walker, 56, who received a fine last Tuesday, said: “I've lived here 25 years and we’ve always parked like this — there's no sensible alternative.“I’ll probably end up paying the fine — you can’t win.” Considering the prospect of further tickets, he added: “I’ll have to park in the road. Though if everyone parks in the road, you’d get gridlock.”

But after meeting with councillors Julia Wassell and Chaudhary Ditta, who represent the Bowerdean, Micklefield and Totteridge electoral division, many residents are planning to appeal.

Cllr Wassell said on Sunday: “It's a complicated issue. The first thing the residents need is clarification — I have asked the police to come round on Thursday evening so we can get it absolutely straight, and I have asked the county council to measure the roads and pavements.”

She warned that problems in Mayhew Crescent are potentially just the beginning: “Parking is going to become a huge issue in 2008. Wycombe has the highest level of car ownership in the South East. A lot of houses were built for people with bicycles, or just one car.”

Cllr Wassell added that she understood the complaints of residents who, due to the congestion, were unable to pull out into the road safely or navigate the pavement with a wheelchair or buggy, and that she also sympathised with both car owners and police. But she said that there were no clear solutions.

NEIGHBOURS in a Totteridge street are being set against each other by a struggle over parking spaces, in what is being seen as a “test case” for Wycombe’s future.

Dozens of residents of Mayhew Crescent were fined recently following complaints that they were obstructing the pavement, despite car owners protesting that there is no realistic alternative.

Councillor Julia Wassell, who represents the Bowerdean, Micklefield and Totteridge electoral division, met with residents last Thursday to hear concerns and clarify the situation. She warned that with more cars than ever fighting for space, and tighter enforcement from increasing numbers of police, Mayhew Crescent could be the first case of an epidemic. Cllr Wassell added: “This is what tightening up parking does — sets residents against residents.

“In my view this is going to get significantly worse in 2008.”

The problem for car owners is that driveways on Mayhew Crescent are often too steep or too narrow to use. One resident, Simon Taylor, said: “Even if you could get up on the driveway you wouldn't be able to open the door to get out.” As a result, many drivers park in the street, but leave two wheels on the pavement — against the law — to allow vehicles to pass. On Wednesday afternoon a fire engine was called to a house on Mayhew Crescent and struggled to navigate through the narrow street. Mr Taylor, who witnessed the event, said: “If we'd parked fully in the road he wouldn't have got past us.”

Mr Taylor added: “We've all worked together as a community over this issue.” But Cllr Wassell said that there was a significant lobby opposed to cars partially parked on the pavement. The obstructed path leaves insufficient room for parents with buggies and wheelchair users, who are forced to use the road instead.

The situation threatens to cause a clash between drivers and pedestrians, with some recipients of the fines wondering which of their neighbours complained. One resident, Catherine Meah, said: “What annoys me is that for years I had to push a double pushchair up the road, but I never went to the council or the police. You can’t park in the driveways. I never complained about it.”

At Thursday’s meeting residents put forward suggestions as to how drivers could park safely while leaving sufficient space for buggies and wheelchairs. But Cllr Wassell expressed scepticism that Bucks County Council would act on the suggestions, saying that any changes would be costly and time-consuming.

Residents fear that unless a compromise is reached, the recent fines will be only the first wave of many. In the meantime, Cllr Wassell urged those who had received penalties not to fight the system: “I wouldn’t like to think of you in court being awarded hundreds of pounds worth of costs.”

One resident is even planning to move out of the area following the mass ticketing. Yvonne Davis, who received a fine without any prior notice, said: “It's the last straw. The morning after I got the ticket I hacked back the trees that have been there for years and years to make room. I have paid my ticket — I didn't protest. But it would have been nice to have had a warning — I would have done something straight away.”

Echoing a sentiment voiced by other residents, she added: “On Arnison Avenue people park completely on the verges. If there’s a rule for one street it should apply to everyone. It just doesn't seem fair, being penalised for parking outside your own house.”

NOSWEAT graduates will soon be competing with hundreds of other qualified candidates for poorly-paid and stressful jobs.But that's not the worst of it, according to a new NUJ report, which claims that media bosses are jeopardising the industry's future in the battle to compete with new media.

The report, entitled Shaping the Future, claims that newspaper journalists are expected to take photographs, shoot video, and write for the web in addition to fulfilling their traditional role - all without sufficient training or extra pay.

NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: "What is clear is that new technology isn't to blame. The faultline is with its appropriation by short-sighted media employers.

"Instead of seizing the opportunity to enhance journalistic content and build and maintain quality media, many simply seize the opportunity to reduce costs and boost profits, viewing the erosion of quality journalism as a necessary sacrifice."

The effect on the day-to-day working practices of journalists is real and significant. A reporter for one local newspaper, who asked not to be named, said that her job had become much more stressful in recent months.

She said: "Every hour we're expected to upload a story to the web - it doesn't matter what it is, just as long as we create the appearance of a busy newsroom.

"A colleague and I were sent on a five-day training course to use video equipment to make short bulletins - now whenever something happens we're expected to go out and film it and turn it into a video for the website. It takes forever - often I have to stay late to finish editing.

"Meanwhile the newsdesk is shrinking. And I'm still expected to report on my patch.

"It's having a really negative effect on the quality of our reporting, as well as on our morale."

When asked if she was paid extra for video and web work, she rolled her eyes.

Another reporter on the same newspaper inadvertently used the word 'crime' instead of 'incident' when hurriedly uploading a newsflash about a traffic collision to the paper's website. A sub-editor would have caught the mistake, but content bypasses the subs' desk.

The website's visitors ridiculed the reporter - with one saying "the only crime is the standard of [the newspaper's] reporting" - but it could have been much worse; he could have made an error that was legally dangerous. Such are the hazards of the modern newsroom.

But not everyone welcomed the report. Guardian media blogger and former Mirror editor Roy Greenslade - among others - decided to leave the union after concluding, following the report, that the NUJ is outdated in a world of citizen journalism.

Greenslade said, on his blog: "Journalistic skills are not entirely wiped out in an online world, but they are eroded and, most importantly, they cannot be confined any longer to an exclusive élite group.

"Secondly, the union's internal demarcations - such as reporter-photographer, reporter-sub, reporter-camera operator - are now utterly irrelevant. All of us must be multi-media journos from now on."

Though he agreed with Dear that media bosses are exploiting digitisation to maintain profit margins at the expense of reporters' jobs, he said that protectionist organised labour could no longer be justified: "I cannot, in conscience, go on supporting this crucial plank of NUJ policy when it is so obvious that online media outlets will require fewer staff.

"But that's only part of the problem. It is also clear that media outlets will never generate the kind of income enjoyed by printed newspapers: circulation revenue will vanish and advertising revenue will be much smaller than today. There just won't be the money to afford a large staff."

The writing, apparently, is on the wall.

Looking back at the third quarter of the twentieth century, it is difficult not to gasp at the insanity of a world which merrily spent a colossal chunk of its GDP on weapons designed to bring about the destruction of civilisation. The gleeful eschatology of American and Russian strategic doctrine at the height of the cold war - Dr Strangelove was based on a real man, and military commanders really did assess consequences in terms of 'megadeaths' - makes modern fears over the threat of Al-Qaeda seem, well, a bit girly.

But spending money on a nuclear arsenal sufficient to destroy Earth several times over wasn't insane - it was MAD. The MAD doctrine - mutually assured destruction - ensured that neither side in the Cold War would provoke the other into launching its nukes. A first strike would guarantee a retaliation. Apart from a few skirmishes around Indochina and the 38th Parallel, the policy worked: World War Three failed to break out. Nuclear weapons are a force for peace.

As nukes are to countries, guns are to people. In the same way that the threat of annihilation kept a lid on the military ambitions of those who wanted to march on Moscow (or, conversely, Washington), the fear of death is the most effective restraint on aggression between people.

I do not find it surprising that most people are inherently opposed to guns and support tight gun control laws, any more than I find it surprising that people choose to be members of CND. Guns are tools of violence, and violence is abhorrent.

But the obvious need not be true. It is precisely because violence is abhorrent that gun control laws - and the UK has the toughest in the world - are so immoral.

I worried, when planning this polemic, that I would fail to find a 'news angle' that would justify its existence. I needn't have. In this week's Sunday Times, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith revealed to reporter Isabel Oakeshott that she wouldn't feel safe walking the streets of London late at night. Though she laughably tried to mitigate the damage by saying, through an aide, that she had recently bought a kebab in Peckham (albeit at 5pm, with a protection officer), floodgates are hard to shut. The next few days saw a torrent of comment in the media, with many people - mainly women - agreeing.

Say what you will about the perception of crime being disproportionate to the reality. It doesn't matter: many women, perhaps most, feel unsafe walking alone at night. That fact is saddening.

Smith is alright, Jack - she has taxpayer funded bodyguards to keep the baddies at bay. But most don't. And they should feel afraid - violent crime happens. Whether it is on the wax or the wane is moot.

Yet a 2006 UN Human Rights Council report declared there is no human right to self-defence. A woman or child has no right to defend themselves against a mugger or a rapist. The same report claims that all national governments are required by international human rights law to implement strict gun control.

To protect whose human rights? Don't suppose for a moment that gun control laws make it substantially harder for criminals to obtain firearms. Last October, Monday Close Up reporter Chris Land revealed that Home Office research confirmed illegal guns are plentiful and growing in number on Britain's streets. On Monday the Metropolitan Police acknowledged, at a press conference featuring Sir Ian Blair posing - Chow Yun Fat style - with dual Uzis, that hundreds of thousands of replica guns are imported into Britain each year, many of which are converted to live weapons.

As a silhouetted LA gang member on a gun-control-related episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit! explained: "Gang members, like myself, like gun control laws because they're a joke. Gun laws don't affect me as a criminal or a gang member. They restrict the citizen."

A bullet stops a rapist, a mugger, a burglar or a robber in his tracks. More to the point, only a damn fool would mug someone for a cellphone if they expected to get shot in the back as they fled. The right to carry a concealed weapon makes everyone safer, even the people who don't exercise that right.

Laws banning handguns were passed in the UK in the aftermath of Dunblane. Yet it is doubtful those laws would have prevented Dunblane (though they do prevent our Olympic shooting team from training here). Homicide rates, meanwhile, have not been affected.

Let me briefly address your ill-conceived counter-arguments.

Firstly: "More guns equals more shootings, stoopid!" Well, no. People often point out that America, awash with guns (almost one each), has a ridiculous level of homicide. Yet homicide is worst in the cities, such as New York and Washington D.C., that have the tightest gun control. 32 innocents died in the Virginia Tech massacre. If just one had been packing, the odds would have changed dramatically. Even as sloppy a thinker as Michael Moore eventually had to concede, in his idiotic Bowling for Columbine, that the number of guns is not the problem: "Guns don't kill people. Americans kill people." And anyway, a properly regulated gun market including a national ballistics database would make it a trivial matter to link bullets to gun owners, ensuring that the vast majority of shootings would be in self-defence.

Secondly: "A gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a child than an intruder." A lazy thinker would interpret this as meaning that not having guns is 43 times better than having guns. But it fails to account for the intruders that are deterred from intruding, as well as those who are driven away mid-burgle by gun-toting homeowners who don't need to shoot because, after all, what chump is going to risk a bullet for the sake of a DVD player and some jewellery? Every accidental gun death is tragic, but let's have some perspective: in America, more people accidentally electrocute themselves in the bath than shoot themselves.

Thirdly: "If everyone starts packing heat, all criminals will have to do so too." That's a real possibility. In fact, MAD demands it. But that's okay - at least the good guys and the bad guys are on a level playing field. A small girl with a gun is as deadly as her 18 stone male attacker is with his. Without it, she gives her de facto consent to whatever the attacker wants. As blogger Marko Enfield puts it: "People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society."

Let me put it this way. There was a brief period in history when one side had weapons vastly superior to the other's. For an account of what resulted, read Wilfred Burchett's dispatches from Hiroshima.

I don't expect to have converted you in such a brief space of time. You're too used to assuming the unassailability of the opinions you share with those around you to imagine that they're built on sophistry and doublethink.

All I ask is for you to concede this: I may have a point.

Smithfield, it seems, has gone the way of the quagga.

The quagga, you may recall, is a kind of half-zebra-half-horse creature which became extinct in the 19th century, and has since been the subject of well-intentioned but ultimately pointless attempts to resurrect it - not because it has any place in the modern world, but because people are sentimental about that sort of thing.

So it is with the abandoned General Market building on Farringdon Street, and the old Fish Market that lies just to the south. A desperate campaign has been launched by English Heritage to save these derelict buildings, despite the fact that they were considered for listing and rejected four times since 1990 - by English Heritage.

It is important to sift fact from sentimental gubbins when it comes to forming opinions on matters such as these. The vague notion that we ought to preserve our cultural heritage is all well and good - and I am no stone-hearted neophile - but it is not a trump card over economic reality and plain common sense.

To that end, allow me to point out a few pertinent facts.

Firstly, the buildings cast a horrendous blight over the area. The dreaded "office canyon", which Sir Terry Farrell warns against in the insipid report he produced for the campaign, is to me infinitely preferable to the status quo - broken windows, blackened and corroded masonry and graffiti-covered boarded up entrances.

Second, there is a good reason for their demolition. After the original buildings were wrecked by a V2 during the war, a botched attempt to repair them during the 1950s left a scarred and ugly chimera in poor structural condition. English Heritage disputes the City of London Corporation's saftey concerns, but it is moot - it would be hugely expensive to restore the buildings, and if no-one sees economic potential in doing so it will not happen.

Third, the meat market itself is not under threat. The iconic Central Market buildings have been the focal point for recent regeneration, with Charterhouse Street's gastropubs a favourite for City slickers and pub-crawling freshers alike. The market itself is going from strength to strength, fuelled by rising demand from London's eateries.

So what does English Heritage propose? Not a lot, as it happens.

It doesn't want the buildings destroyed, obviously - English Heritage loves old buildings - but suggestions as to what it does want are scant.

On the one hand, the campaign bemoans the fact that the City of London Corporation prioritises economic considerations over cultural ones, but on the other complains that the City should have offered the buildings on the open market.

Vague allusions are made to "regeneration", "a new Soho or Covent Garden", and "the continued renaissance of the Smithfield area". But regeneration will not happen while the area is economically unattractive.

London is short of space, and the General Market building is a waste of it.

You may think I am being unduly harsh, and that the buildings are in fact fine examples of Victorian architecture. Perhaps, but there are others.

Heritage is a fine thing, but if tradition were to triumph over progress every time, Smithfield would still be a venue for the public execution of heretics.

As a heretic, I am glad that it is not. It is time to let this quagga die.