THERE are some things about the British way of life which must strike visitors as hard to fathom.

Former Echo sub-editor Bill Bryson listed some of them in his best-seller Notes From A Small Island.

His choices included Sooty, Marmite, George Formby, HP Sauce, steam trains and windbreaks on the beach.

But surely there’s one particular quality about the British that must seem endearingly dotty to foreigners – our attitude to animals.

Yesterday, two fire crews rescued a trapped pigeon in central Bournemouth. Some would find it odd that whereas some people pay to have a pest controller deal with a trapped pigeon, others ring the fire brigade to have it rescued at public expense.

But if the firefighters didn’t have a human emergency to deal with, where’s the harm? And isn’t it good to live in a country where the fire and rescue service concerns itself with all life, not just the human variety.