Colonel Withers

Colonel Withers walks Seabrook Pier every morning with his dog, Biscuit. He knows how the pier should look, and writes to the Council when it does not.

He is perhaps seventy, straight-backed, with a clipped grey moustache and a tweed coat. He observes everything within about half a mile and reports his findings to anyone who will listen and to several people who will not. He writes to the Council, to the Seabrook Chronicle and to the harbourmaster. He keeps a small leather-bound notebook with a pencil in the spine, and the entries are dated.

He is not a crank. He notices things and cannot bear the fact that nobody else does. By his own account he has received nothing of practical use from any of his correspondents.

His present subject is the deck chairs at the far end of the pier. They are chained and stacked every evening to a system, and he knows the system. Some mornings they are three inches out, with a different chair on top and the chain through the wrong rung. He has written to the Council twice.

Biscuit is brown and white and of uncertain breed, and waits under the nearest table. The Colonel sits down without being invited and is easily satisfied once agreed with.

Where you will find him

• On Seabrook Pier, every morning, as far as the shelter at the end and back.
• At Finch’s Tea Room, at the corner table. Biscuit is under it.
• In the letters column of the Seabrook Chronicle.