SO IT'S the Ducking Stool Clock after all, sneaking in in spite of protests. Congratulations to Norrie Davies for slamming it!

Walking from the Grange (Leominster's Pride) I was aghast to see, guarded or trampled and back-staged by two woolly lions (not our far-famed Ryelands sheep, the Leominster Ore'?), a stool with a tiny lady, not the planned jaunty fella in a stove-pipe hat having all the fun of the fair see-sawing centre-stage. Here in Corn Square, hands stuck at midnight, was Leominster's Shame, worse than a silly joke.

In 1809, ducking already abandoned elsewhere, Jenny Pipes of the Christian town of Leominster was strapped on the stool, dragged aloft around the town, target of every sort of filthy abuse, and half-drowned, ducked in the Kenwater. Yet spluttering and crying she bravely cursed the shame-faced councillors.

There is much talk these days of public apology (even recompense) for public misdeeds, past and present, be it slavery, theft of Elgin Marbles or a museum display of tribal skulls. A municipal apology to Jenny Pipes is now due. Jenny was no saint, but a service of expiation in the Priory, where the real ducking stool is kept (quite rightly in my view: that's historic evidence, suitably labelled) might appropriately be an annual event. Or, while the clock still has the ducking stool, there could be an orderly protest in Corn Square, say, a Festival fringe, Jenny Pipes Day'.

Torture is back in fashion in the real world, and ducking, Leominster style, is torture. Blair's craven government allows the monster, Bush, to fly his victims beyond the reach of law to Guantanimo Bay-style torture camps in states with barbarous rulers (most states have them), touching down on our native soil sacred to freedom' without anyone demanding their freedom or fair trial.

They call it exceptional rendition' but it's very far from exceptional. Water-boarding' is what many captives get: strapped-down near-drowning, Leominster style, and we all look away.

Some people may like to keep the flatulent lions, but the council should certainly remove the ducking stool from the clock, never mind the public money and misguided donations lost.

Alfred Dowson, Deerfold, Birtley, Bucknell.