“If it’s as serious as what they are saying then I doubt washing your clothes is going to make a big difference,” suggested Margaret Cowie.
Watching her dogs being put through obedience training classes on a street in the centre of Salisbury on Sunday, she suspected overreaction had set in.
Among locals out to go shopping or for a stroll a week after the alarm was first raised, responses swung between exasperation and bemusement.
Closure of the park where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia collapsed, and the screening of the restaurant Zizzi, where they ate, has disrupted only a small section of the cathedral city.
But astonishment at the international espionage drama played out in the narrow lanes and shopping precincts has not subsided.
George Taylor, a dog trainer, said: “I must have walked past them on that bench last Sunday afternoon, but I didn’t notice them.”
Calls from public health officials for anyone who visited the restaurant and bar at the centre of the spy poisoning mystery last Sunday or Monday to wash their clothes and possessions raised fresh concerns.
Hannah McDougall, who was out walking with her mother, said: “Perhaps they should have got the army in a little earlier.
“It’s five or six days on and they are telling us to wash our clothes. That’s a bite late. Perhaps their next announcement will [extend the warning] to everyone in Salisbury.”
Police officers are stationed outside Zizzi and tall green screens have been erected in front of the restaurant.
On Sunday afternoon, Wiltshire police said they had charged a man alleged to have breached one of the cordons.
Jamie Knight, 30, from Salisbury, was arrested in The Maltings area, which had been sealed off on Friday evening, a police statement said.
He has been charged with assaulting a police officer, common assault, criminal damage to a police vehicle and a racially aggravated public order offence. Knight was remanded in custody and is due before Swindon magistrates court on Monday.
“Robust action will be taken against anyone who breaches or interferes with any cordon or the ongoing police investigation,” Wiltshire police said.
On Market Place, heads turned among afternoon diners as a convoy of army transporters, escorted by police motorbikes, rumbled past rows of cafes and restaurants.
Sarah Dixon, who had a child in a pushchair, feared the official response had been a bit slow. “It’s only now, a week on, that they are telling us to wash our clothes,” she said. “People are intrigued at what’s happening.”
Dave Jones, who lives in Salisbury, was surprised by the latest twist. “It’s a bit late,” he said. “You’d have thought with Porton Down [the government’s chemical research facility] only a few miles down the road they would have worked it out by now.”
In the Cathedral close, a car park attendant stood waiting for visitors opposite the National Trust’s Mompesson House and near the one-time home of the former prime minister Edward Heath. “Salisbury is not short of attractions,” he said. “But there do seem to be slightly fewer cars and visitors.”
Alarm over chemical weapons may be deterring some tourists, but two sixth formers passing through the Cathedral close, Harry Thompson and Tristan Sutton, said they were not worried by the police and military presence. “I suppose they have to be thorough, although some of it looks a bit like overkill,” they remarked.
