J‐registration Marples

Anyone out for a stroll in London's parks might well have puzzled over the way in which some of the oaks and elms are marked with a mysterious letter ‘J’. If they had been around on a particular morning a few months back they would have seen a smallish figure, clad in a bright red track suit, clutching a bucket of whitewash and a park keeper literally on tow, on a long rope.