Fragrant fields

TOM STEVENSON

CARS on a holiday route near Thirsk, North Yorkshire, were shot at by snipers, hidden in woodland, who fired high-calibre .22 pellets at passing vehicles. Three youths were helping police with their inquiries.

A teacher was shot in the back by a pellet from an air pistol fired by a 13-year-old boy at Greenfield Comprehensive, Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham.

FOURTEEN-year-old Ryan had been spending a weekend with a schoolfriend, when his mother received a call from the family saying he had been shot in the eye by a 'soft air gun'. Ryan and his mates had been playing with the gun, which belonged to his friend (also 14). One of the boys had fired it, and the plastic pellet (the size of a small pea) had grazed Ryan's right retina. After five days in hospital it is still not certain whether he will regain full use of his eye.

THE Complete Book of Cacti and Succulents by Terry Hewitt (Dorling Kindersley, pounds 15.99) says that slugs and snails 'feed on leaves and fleshy stems . . . To eradicate persistent offenders, scatter slug pellets between the plants or apply a preparation based on aluminium sulphate.' An A-Z plant catalogue forms the chief part of this beautifully produced book but there is a useful section on ways to use succulents and cacti inside and out.

Sir: The suggestion that David Townsend should eat his way through all 38 William books ('An appetite for Just William'; Diary, 23 July) gives an added resonance to the meaning of consumer.

A gun being examined by an Old Bailey juror considering verdicts in a robbery case went off yesterday, damaging a ceiling.

A man was wounded in the face by an airgun pellet fired into his home in Yelverton, west Devon, from a passing car. The pellet passed through a window and hit him just below the right eye.