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Builder hires bodyguard to protect him from seagulls
Last updated at 00:07am on 01.05.07Builder Colin Jones is so sick of attacks from dive-bombing seagulls he's hired a £6-an-hour bodyguard to fend them off with a kitchen broom.
Colin, 38, put a job advert up in his local Asda after he was repeatedly pecked by the birds while working on rooftop projects in Brighton.
He received 20 phone calls and the successful applicant Steve Jackow - now nicknamed Steven Seagull - spends his time scaring off pesky gulls by waving a broom in the air.
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Builder Colin Jones with his 'bodyguard' Steve Jackow – now nicknamed Steven Seagull – who spends his time scaring off pesky gulls by waving a broom in the air
Steve, 28, wears a fluorescent yellow bib to scare off the airborne predators and has a referee's whistle for persistent offenders.
Colin said: "I don't know what it is about me they don't like but I've got cuts and bruises all over my face and body.
"I started off by wearing a hard hat but it kept getting knocked off - then I had my sandwich box stolen."
Experts say the birds are merely defending their nests but Colin said they go too far. He said the last straw came when he needed two stitches in a cut to the back of his head after he was targeted while loading roof timber onto a pulley.
"I felt like I'd been shot in the skull and when I when I touched my hair it was streaming with blood. I looked around and I was surrounded in a cloud of feathers - that was it, something had to be done."
Colin said he could just about afford to fork out the minimum wage for a personal bodyguard.
Steve said: "When he told me what the job was I thought he was taking the mickey but then he showed me some of his scars. This bloke was deadly serious.
"I try not to clobber the birds, just scare them away. They can be quite vicious though and you really need eyes in the back of your head.
"My arms ache at the end of the day and I almost dislocated my shoulder once with a life-saving swipe.”
