Letter: Callous rustics

Letter:

Callous rustics

Sir: Philip Hensher (Comment, 30 July) must be psychic when he states that if his recent cycling accident had happened in Dorset, he could have been left in the gutter, in contrast to the help and kindness he received from passers-by in London.

That is more or less what happened to me when I fell and broke my wrist outside my daughter's home in the village of Ibberton in Dorset.

As I lay in the road trying to get my wits about me, at least two vehicles drove by, both drivers taking not the slightest notice. One parked opposite while the driver busied herself unloading the weekly shopping.

Eventually her husband appeared to lend her a hand, so I asked somewhat weakly from my position in the gutter, if he would help me to get up. "Oh," he said, most unsympathetically, "I thought you were a drunk or a tramp or something."

I'm mending nicely now, but my daughter tells me no one in the village has ever asked how I fared.

ROY KNIGHT

Bournemouth, Dorset