Robert Easton, Billinudgel.
In Franco’s Spain Police officers carried rulers to check women’s skirts. Here in Byron our brave young officers have been whipped into a moral frenzy over rules on sunbathing by their superiors who regret the passing of the 1950s.
Last week, friends of mine, married grandparents in their sixties, took a healthy beach walk and on a deserted stretch dared to cool off in the Pacific – without a cossie on! From the empty horizon officers zoomed up and with the fervour of primary school nuns scolded them for immorality and fined them $1,000 threatening criminal records if they dared to disagree.
They claimed there is a new policy of ‘zero tolerance’ for skinny dipping or showing a buttock on a towel.
Have these young officers never heard of St Tropez in the 1960s? Has no one told them modern people don’t care about this anymore?
The adage is that Police are here to protect us, not control us. I don’t need protecting from glimpses of a saggy bottom. But maybe this is a diplomatic rapprochement with Indonesia where public caning for immorality has proved immensely popular recently.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
