WE recounted businessman Graham Ware's wretched journey last week. He had to rush around finding nearly a tenner's worth of change to park at Nunnery Lane car park in York, then his return rail journey from London was delayed for two hours.

A nightmare? Don't talk rot, says an email which arrived in the Diary's in-box fair fizzing with annoyance.

Mr Ware "is really quite a lucky bloke," the terrific rant begins. Thanks to the train hold-up, he finally reached his car at 11pm. That meant he was liable for a further £2 in overnight parking charges - assuming he didn't have a resident's discount - which would have taken his bill to £11.50.

"Not having coughed up the extra £2, Mr Ware was even more lucky to have escaped a parking fine which would have swollen our civic coffers further," the email continues.

"The fact that he didn't reinforces my suspicion that there are no parking wardens on duty in the evening - or if there are, they are reduced to a minimum.

"It is my misfortune to be a sitting duck living in a Respark street in which there are several houses in multiple occupation. It is not unusual for a number of permitless cars to appear after working hours and stay all evening, or even all night, without the benefit of a visitors' scratchcard: or if they do have a visitors' scratchcard they don't bother to validate it by scratching it off to show the correct date."

This flouting of the rules infuriates our Resparker. "Never have I seen any of these parking pirates hit with a parking penalty.

"On the one occasion nastiness got the better of me and led me to ring the parking hotline to report three cars freely occupying spaces for which we have to pay £84 per year, nothing happened.

"Of course, this could have been because the call centre they were reported to is in Bournemouth (at least it's not Bombay), so I expect the illegally parked cars were not passed on to the warden patrol in York until the following morning when it was too late - although I never saw wardens then, either."

The Diary has kept the identity of our contributor anonymous because "I do not wish my neighbours to know that I am the person creeping around after dark in my Sherlock Holmes hat, clutching torch and magnifying glass and peering though car windscreens for parking scratch cards".

CONGRATULATIONS to Andrew Jenkinson, of Heworth, York. He won our latest "Be A Cartoonist" competition.

Last month Wolf left his Saturday Yorkatt & Eric strip blank and invited people to fill in the speech bubbles. Loads of you entered and Wolf, also known as Richard Stansfield, picked out Andrew's as the funniest.

Most of the entries had a Royal Ascot theme, including the winner. In it, Yorkatt says to Eric: "I'm having difficulty finding my Ascot outfit, Eric. The top hat was no problem, but I wonder if our tails will get us into the Royal Enclosure..."

Andrew wins a framed original cartoon from Wolf.

Richard said the standard of entries was high (only one was libellous) and also commended the jokes submitted by Peter Anderson of Wrelton, Pickering; Mollie Haigh, of Shipton-by-Beningbrough; and Trevor Smith, of Stockton Lane, York.

CHARLES Hutchinson revealed today that the world premiere of the Steptoe & Son stage play will be staged at York Theatre Royal. But who were the last rag and bone men in this neck of the woods? Can anyone help?

Updated: 10:02 Tuesday, July 05, 2005