Radstock's Mayor Rupert Bevan offers his thoughts:

'Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun.' So wrote John Keats in the first stanza of his immortal poem, 'Ode to Autumn.'

I have been reminded of these lines in recent weeks. Radstock has been blessed with fine weather and we have not experienced an autumn like this for many years.

As a nation we have become less interested in harvesting wild food. Blackberries which festooned local paths have gone unharvested, so too, hazel nuts, crab apples and a range of berries which my mother – and parents of many others- turned into pie fillings, jams and jellies in previous decades.

These days much of nature's bounty collects in piles beneath the parturitive trees and shrubs, unnoticed by humans who could benefit from them.

The result? Queues for expensive supermarket fruit and vegetables, and canned products which are disappearing fast off the shelves. Bread too. Not a happy state of affairs for those beleaguered customers who couldn't get to the shops early enough.

Why this obsession with loo roll? My prep school headmaster said three sheets were enough: one up, one down and a shiner. I sincerely hope that we will show much more consideration to our neighbours by not stockpiling groceries this autumn.

Like the blackberries on the footpaths, many of the purchases will be consigned to oblivion during the following weeks when it is realised that there were few actual shortages.