“By eck, it’s getting more like the Bronx* every day,” we chuckled (hollowly).

On Wednesday evening, though, we still didn’t know exactly what had happened. We simply saw several police cars turning up at the local old folks’ residence, and started making wild, but fun, assumptions.

“Those old people can be proper terrors,” I said. “You can never be sure if that sweet little elderly gent is carrying a walking stick or if it is really a swordstick. With a little engineering ingenuity, it’s probably easy enough to convert a zimmer frame into a four-barrelled poacher’s sidearm. Still, at least it looks like the local constabulary has rumbled them at last.”

The truth, according to the local papers, was more prosaic . A man in his mid-twenties had been ambushed by four assailants and had suffered multiple stab wounds. It all happened in the alley that we regularly use as a shortcut to the shops.

The most surprising thing, I guess, is that we were at all surprised that something like this could happen. This particular alley may be a pleasant, tree-lined walk, but there are always plenty of empty booze bottles and cans strewn among the undergrowth, and council workmen recently erected heavy-duty security fencing along the other side, which backs onto the elderly residents’ apartments. Evidently, one or two (maybe even more) villains and ne’er-do-wells like to hang around there late at night.

Maybe it’s not so bad after all, though. Our quiet corner still has no CCTV cameras staring down at us. Hmm, is it just me, or has anyone else (e.g., four local muggers) spotted that little omission?

* Best Kept Village, 1989.

A short walk up Lincoln High Street from its southern end (not far from where we live) you will find Hermit Street. With no further clues, you might assume that it was built where a hermitage or monastery once stood. But you would be wrong. Hermit Street, it seems, was named after a horse! Hermit was the name of the winner of the 1867 Derby, no less, and was owned by Henry Chaplin. Aha, I thought. There’s a Chaplin Street further up the High Street, so whoever Henry Chaplin was, he must have been someone important — or at least rich.

The Chaplins had been landowners in Lincolnshire since 1658. Henry Chaplin was born at Ryhall hall, near Stamford in 1841 and inherited Blankney Hall and large estates in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire when he was 21. His social circle included the highest in the land, including Queen Victoria’s son, Bertie, who later became King Edward VII. Chaplin was engaged to Lady Florence Paget in 1864 but was jilted at the altar. After this Chaplin became obsessed with gambling and racing, and it was said ”he bought horses as if he was drunk and betted as if he was mad”.

Hermit was almost withdrawn from the Derby, owing to illness, but eventually won and apparently cost Chaplin’s love rival, 4th Marquis of Hastings, thousands of pounds in lost wagers, too, which was presumably some consolation to Chaplin for the events of three years earlier. One can only wonder how many of the present residents of Lincoln’s Hermit Street know anything of this fascinating story.