Name: The Drainspotter.
AKA: Bryan Gibson.
Age: 67.
Appearance: Wherever stagnant water accumulates in the county of Cornwall.
Unless that’s a polluted lake in the photograph, he’s very small, isn’t he? That’s not Bryan; that’s Cormy, the £1.99 garden gnome who appears in Gibson’s photographs of blocked drains.
Why? Because before Cormy was in the picture, no one wanted to know. “People love him and he is finally helping me get this out there,” says Gibson.
Get what out there? “The scandal of the drainage maintenance in Cornwall,” according to Gibson. The retired journalist travels the county most days, photographing clogged and flooded drains and emailing the pictures to the council.
Drains get blocked – it happens. That appears to be the council’s position. “There is no significant problem with blocked drains, but blockages will always occur,” said a spokesman.
But that’s not Gibson’s position, I take it. No, he insists that poorly maintained drains are “killing people, wrecking houses and ruining cars”.
Killing people? Who died from a blocked drain? That’s unclear, but Gibson’s car was damaged by floodwater, and he has been taking pictures of drains ever since.
How long ago was this? Four years.
And how many drain pictures has Gibson taken in that time? By his own reckoning, about 15,000.
As crusades go, his sounds boring and stupid. Gibson is used to such criticism: “People may think I am a nerd and I was laughed out of court by a judge who called me obsessive, but it takes this much dedication to get something done.”
So something has been done? No. Gibson says there has been absolutely no sign of improvement.
It sounds as if he is wasting his time. What is the point? “I just want someone to look at all the background work I have done and take me seriously,” he says.
I suppose that is all any of us want, although I’d prefer to be taken seriously without doing any background work. That’s where the gnome comes in. Since Cormy – named for Cormac, Cornwall’s civil engineering service – started appearing in them, Gibson’s drain snaps have been published in the Plymouth Herald and on the BBC website.
And now on the Guardian website. Yes, because gnomes.
Do say: “Cormy saves Cornwall from plight of inadequate drainage, and man from bleak spectre of retirement.”
Don’t say: “Gnome-Man is an island.”
