WE WATCHED TELEVISION FOR less than two hours in the whole year of 1993 and decided neither to renew our TV licence nor to watch anything more on our ageing TV set, which we got rid of. At monotonous regularity, we received letters from the TV licensing authority, asking us whether we had a licence and informing that if we did not have one, there would be dire consequences. They were all aggressive and threatening in tone. We always replied that we had no TV. Eventually, my wife got fed up with these annoying missives.

She took the latest threatening letter from the TV licensing authority and wrote a letter on it that went something like this:

“To whom it may concern. We neither own guns nor sell liquor. Neither of the authorities that license these things pester us for licences. We do not possess a television, as we have told you before. Why do you persist in sending us letters regarding TV licences? Please cease forthwith.”

My wife read me her letter and asked me whether I thought it was alright. I asked her in whose name she had signed it. She told me that it was in her maiden name. I told her to go ahead and send it.

For a while, we did not hear any more from the TV licensing authority. Now, we receive differently worded but still threatening letters from the authority, but these are addressed to “The Occupier” rather than to anyone in particular.

A few days ago, at the end of August 2020, there was a small piece in the London ‘Times’ newspaper. It reads as follows:

“Rachel Mackay, a manager for Historic Royal Palaces, gave a sigh when she received a familiar brown envelope addressed to ‘The Current Occupier, Kew Palace, which has not been lived in for two centuries. ‘Oh good,’ she said, ‘it’s the time of year where I have to explain to the TV Licensing Authority why George III hasn’t paid his TV licence since 1820.”

We know how Rachel Mackay must be feeling.