Having thrilled a couple of weeks ago to the story of Hansel and Gretel and their incarceration by the cannibal witch in her gingerbread house, I emerged from Milton Keynes Theatre, and Welsh National Opera’s production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s perennially popular work, to find that I, too, had become a prisoner, in a car park.

The one in question is next door to the theatre and operated by the private company Vinci Park in co-operation with Milton Keynes Council.

In the light of my experience, I think it’s high time they reviewed their system of operation.

The WNO spring tour, just passed, attracts many people from Oxford. The same applies to Glyndebourne’s autumn tour.

I travelled twice to last month’s productions.

On the Thursday night, for The Magic Flute, I had no difficulty over parking.

Both ticket machines were in operation.

One of them offered a pre-payment facility, supplying a ticket that could be used to activate the barrier on the way out, without the need to join the queue for payment when the theatre emptied.

The cost was double, but we were only talking about £2.40 as against £1.20.

That the sums involved are so trifling makes all the more extraordinary the behaviour of the sole member of the car park staff on the day of my second opera visit.

This was on Saturday night for a full-house performance of the Humperdinck. Rosemarie and I arrived to find one of the car park’s two machines out of action. It was the one that allowed pre-payment.

Now in these circumstances it would have been a welcome service to customers if they had been told, before driving in, that they were likely to be facing a long queue later on when they and all the other opera-goers emerged from the theatre.

We decided to stay put, though. I arranged for a speedy exit from the theatre by moving in the interval from the centre of the auditorium to less-good seats on a side aisle. We also left before the ovations.

In the car park there were three or four people at the entrance.

One was making repeated passes with her ticket at the machine with the aim – eventually realised – of being told what she owed.

We followed. Rosemarie tried time and time again to get the ticket to work, but it was constantly rejected. She then suggested that I should collect the car, while she went to see the member of staff at the barrier to pay and secure our exit.

Collecting the car was easy but when I reached the barrier I found Rosemarie had made no progress in getting the barrier raised.

The staff member was adamant that Rosemarie must return to the machine with a new ticket that she gave her. She claimed the other wasn’t working because it had been bent (it hadn’t).

The snag with that was that a long queue had now built up at the machine. Rosemarie didn’t see why we should be delayed by a malfunction in equipment that we had nothing to do with.

She offered the £1.20 and demanded that we be released, in the gentle, good-natured way that is her trademark.

The attendant was adamant, however, that she could not take money. We then removed the cones blocking a second exit from the car park in an effort to escape. She then stood in the path of the car in the manner shown in my photograph.

Repeated demands by me that this absurdity must cease and that we must be allowed to leave merely brought ever more emphatic assertion that this could only be achieved through our return to the machine with the new ticket.

Rosemarie realised that the stand-off threatened to last all night and did what she was told.

Amid the flurry of activity, however, she could not lay hands immediately on the ticket. “If you don’t find it, you’ll will have to pay for a lost ticket,” she was told. This says much about the mind-set of this individual.

Happily, the ticket was recovered and other punters at the machine kindly allowed Rosemarie to go to the head of the queue. We then got on our way.

But this was all a nasty, unnecessary business. I shall park elsewhere in future.