AND now a plea for understanding and sympathy toward the borough’s parking wardens and their overlords down at the Civic Offices, writes BARRIE HUDSON.

No, really.

They deserve sympathy, understanding and gratitude. How’s that for controversial?

Two things have prompted these words.

The first was the council revealing a few days back that it raked in well over 600 grand from parking fines during the last financial year, and getting some flak as a result.

The second was something I saw in Commercial Road a while ago, when no wardens happened to be patrolling. In the middle of rush hour, a bloke stopped his car dead in the middle of the street. He was completely oblivious to the chaos behind him, and to the dry cleaning bills of the poor devils who had to swerve to avoid a smash.

I thought at first that he must have suffered some dreadful health crisis, but no, he just trotted into a shop, spent about five minutes nattering with some people and trotted back out again.

It was as he was getting back into his car that he was hit and flattened by a cyclist who was heading at speed the wrong way up the one-way street. The cyclist came down spread-eagled like a flying squirrel whose intended tree turned out to be a cruel mirage. How the watching pedestrians chuckled as karma caught up with two selfish halfwits for the price of one – especially when they then got up, squared off for a fight, thought better of it and scarpered.

I resolved on the spot never to be One of Those People. I have never been so vehement, unless you count that time when I swore off the drink because the imaginary giant lobsters kept nicking my Weetabix.

From now on, if I ever get another ticket, I’ll ask myself whether I’ve been hard done by or whether I was being One of Those People. I think we all should.

If the ticket is issued at a council car park, we should ask ourselves: “ Was it issued by a parking warden who cackled demonically as the last seconds ticked by and we desperately sprinted toward our vehicle?” If that is the case, we were hard done by.

Alternatively, were we simply late back for no particular reason and decided to chance it? If that’s the case, we’re not necessarily One of Those People – unless we consider ourselves the victims of an injustice on a par with that which befell the Guildford Four. Then we are.

Perhaps a ticket was issued because we were parked dangerously, maybe even causing others to take their lives in their hands in order to get around us. In that case, we should ask ourselves: “Did I park where I did in order to avoid an accident, rescue a kitten from a tree, run after an escaping bank robber, administer the Heimlich Manoeuvre to an elderly gentleman choking on a Werther’s Original or perform some similar act of altruism?”

If not, we’re One of Those People.

Should we be caught out leaving our vehicle on a double yellow, we should ask ourselves: “Was I gone for a minute or less on some trivial errand, and did the parking warden then gleefully spring out from a hiding place like some monstrous trapdoor spider? Or was I gone for nine hours because I can’t be bothered using the car park down the road?”

If enough people object to parking wardens on principle, the council should choose a street at random and announce there will be no regulations and no wardens for 24 hours. Preferably on a Saturday.

The next day will mark the first occasion in recorded history when returning parking wardens are greeted like conquering heroes.