IS nothing sacred? Why is it that every time people have a bit of fun in this country some joyless specimen of officialdom comes along and bursts their bubble?

Not content with clobbering everyday visitors to Stonehenge with an astronomical entrance fee, English Heritage now intends to charge Solstice revellers for parking and to forbid alcohol.

Too many people are turning up, it seems, and too many are getting tanked up. Horizontal stargazers are to be discouraged. Hitting them in the wallet will reduce their numbers and encourage the diehards to travel by bus.

That’s the theory.

I doubt there are enough buses in the county to transport even half of last summer’s 40,000-strong crowd.

And if there are, there soon won’t be, once Wiltshire Council has taken its axe to subsidies.

According to the henge’s guardians, the booze ban will “enable everyone to have a better experience”. Especially “those with young families”.

Why anyone with children wants to keep them up until dawn, milling about in the open air with hordes of strangers and getting overtired and overwrought is as much a mystery to me as how those prehistoric builders got the job done in the first place.

You may care to know that I have on my noticeboard at home a signed photo of Druid leader King Arthur Pendragon, wishing me “Bright Blessings”, and very appreciative I am, too.

Whilst I’m unlikely to join his Loyal Warband, I am a great believer in the freedom to be amiably eccentric.

He doesn’t want to pay to pray.

I suspect English Heritage would retort that the majority of solstice attendees aren’t remotely interested in the power of prayer.

The event is just a great party, credited with a mystical significance you’d be hard pushed to justify. One of those things you can tick off your lifetime to-do list.

So what’s wrong with that?

English Heritage says it wants to “reduce risk” to the public and to the monument itself.

Has any lasting damage been done to the Stones by these shenanigans?

Have there been any serious injuries to sunrise observers? None that I’ve heard of.

I was once one of a small, invited audience (I’m showing off now!) sitting amid the Stones watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream – on a balmy Midsummer Night, naturally – with actors darting in and out of the shadows just a few feet away. It was a magical experience.

But Stonehenge belongs to the people.

And once in a while they should all be free to share in the magic in their own way. Free being the operative word.

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