The morning after the Paris tragedy, as I was tackling breakfast, Abbie, my daughter in Dubai, phoned to check if I was ok. We had mentioned we were going away for a few days with Ellie’s sister and her husband but she could not recall the destination.

It was a nice call to receive but naturally you make light of such things. So I contended when I took the dogs for a walk down the Green Way (a former railway track now set up for walkers and cyclists) that morning and I did not see anyone with Kalashnikovs heading our way. It was a flippant remark but, of course, the thought does come into your head: there is no reason why some nutter cannot just go out and bump off a few cyclists and walkers on a Saturday morning in the Tarn: simply because he or she can. That is today’s reality and tomorrow’s.

It has been brought home to many that there is very little we can do to prevent such outrages. That alone persuades me that they are not the type of people with whom you can negotiate and set up a lasting agreement. They are not seeking home rule or independence: just the death of us all.

France, of course, is a big country: roughly 2.27 times bigger than the entire United Kingdom and considerably less populated when it comes to over-population, but, language apart, we share many of the same values, although in France the age of consent is 15, whereas in England it is 16.

Being so much bigger, it is easier to distance yourself from such terrifying events as the Paris shootings. Here, people talked about the awful events, were drawn to the television screens and the newspapers were full of the drama and the tragedy. But the fact is, down in The Tarn, we are somewhat far from the epicentre of tragedy.

I remember when the previous shootings took place in Paris, when so many employees were killed in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, people in the UK asked if we were scared, being so close. The fact is, unless you live north of Sheffield and Hull, you in Watford are far nearer Paris than we are.

However, I fancy such geographical points will not count for much for this is not the first such atrocity and it most certainly won't be the last and perhaps not the biggest, either.

Some suggest they targeted France because of the ban on the burka. Well if that is the criteria, Switzerland will be in for it next, because they have just banned it.

Jeremy Corbyn did not endear himself to the French when he described the tragedy as taking place in “a multi-cultural city that we all love”, because the French are under the impression that it is the French capital and would argue the multi-cultural tags are not relevant, because the French culture is paramount in France, just as the Arab culture predominates in the Middle East. When there is such a glaring example of underlining the schism between cultures, it is not timely to mention multi-culturism, but then again Corbyn has had some kind words to say about the IRA’s indiscriminate bombers and lauded the fact the London bombers in July 2005 died for what they believed in.

Corbyn apart, certainly the French were very moved by the behaviour of the English at Wembley. Le Rosbifs have gone up in the estimation of The Frogs. We could sense that warmer attitude far away here in The Tarn.

Doubtless the “no war” brigade, standing up for peace, will demonstrate their peaceful credentials by battling police who are trying to keep law and order, as did the “no borders” brigade recently. And in Paris, the protesters before the climate change meeting, thought nothing of picking up the flowers and candles placed by those mourning the Paris atrocity, and hurling them at police, who were doing no more than stopping the protesters reaching sensitive areas.

People will blame Tony Blair for it all, and as much as I would love to blame him for everything, I think this cancer in the Middle East is not just the result of the invasion of Iraq. It has been there for years but now it has multiplied.

When I was a child, long before Tony Blair left school, I was aware of the idea that some believed if they killed an infidel, they would reach the gates of heaven. My father told me, at the cusp of the 1940s and ‘50s, that it was not so relevant, for it was an idea that belonged to the olden days and very few thought that way anymore.

Now they do, it transpires.

  • I take this opportunity to commend to you a new book “Watford – A History” written and researched by Mary Forsyth. The publication traces the history of the town in some 55,000 words from its early beginnings to the 1970s.

Mary, who has devoted much of her spare time tracing the origins of buildings and reading the previous histories of Hertfordshire, has pulled all these together in a no-nonsense textbook, which will give the reader the basic outline of how we arrived at the Watford of today, replete with the blight of the central redevelopment.

I mean no criticism of the book in that it underlines not only what we know but what we do not know. There was not a Bob Nunn back in 1500 or 1400, painting town views or sundry diarists discussing the local participation in the Peasants Revolt. The Watford Observer was not launched until 1863 and so we are not privy to the discussion and controversies that raged over the development of the town before that date.

In fact Watford was relatively small fry compared to St Albans and Hertford in bygone days, and was not considered worthy of the writing of an individual history until the 19th century. Mary has done well, garnering the odd items from County histories, which focused largely on the progress of the landed gentry. As a result, we have an overall picture of the progress of the town and its emergence.

At £14.99, it puts you in the picture and the book is available at Watford Museum.