Innholdsfortegnelse for 31-Mar-2021 i Country Life

DANIEL DEFOE described High Peak as ‘the most desolate, wild and abandoned country in all England’, but, as Britain’s first designated national park celebrates its 70th birthday, few people will recall a time when this striking Peak District landscape was not accessible to all. The reward came after decades of mostly polite protest. As poets rhapsodised about ‘untamed’ countryside and ramblers roamed, enabled by modern transport, so, too, did gamekeeper and landowner associations form. There was inevitable conflict, the embers of which are still regularly poked. In 1932, Benny Rothman led the famous Mass Trespass across the bleak wastes of Kinder Scout. At his trial, he said: ‘We ramblers, after a hard week’s work, in smoky towns and cities, go out rambling for relaxation and fresh air… our request, or…

TREES are good things and they have stepped into Man’s laser focus as saviours of climate change, but they are much more than merely sinks for carbon dioxide. Trees are beautiful, stately and this is the time to look at them as they burst into leaf with staggering shows of often overlooked flowers. Trees may get lumped together by many people as some sort of collective noun, but each species produces wood that excels in certain uses. The variety is a joy. Ash is tough and resists shock, so makes handles for axes and Windsor chairs, beech is ideal for indoor furniture, birch made cotton reels, oak’s uses range from all the great wooden sailing ships since the Vikings to pews, houses and beer barrels, willow gives us cricket bats;…

ON the loch of Skail in Orkney I remember a whooper swan still living which had been winged, captured and pinioned sixty-three years before as an adult bird. It was still shy and wild, except when captured after an injury, when it was very savage. Herr H. C. Müller in his Faeröernes Fuglefauna writes of a pair of herring gulls taken from the nest by a farmer in 1771, which were still living in 1846, but departed soon after the old man died. Professor Newton (Diet of Birds) mentions a pair of blue tits which used a bottle in a tree as a nesting site for a hundred years; and Mr Howard (British Warblers) the case of a pair of wry-necks using the same nesting site for sixty years, as…

REGENERATIVE farming is now found in every part of the country. It ranges from the fully organic to lighter regimes that reduce drastically the use of chemicals by encouraging cultivation systems that recover soil fertility. Cover crops in the winter and livestock grazing on arable land in the warmer months are also making their contribution, as farmers recognise that the ever-increasing application of chemicals is both expensive and less and less effective. Change is in the air and many local groups have sprung up to enable neighbouring farmers to try out different solutions and sort through the bewildering amount of information with which they are deluged. ‘Questioning of farming methods is no longer confined to the cranky edge’ The Government’s reform of the agricultural support system has, of course, hastened…

Now, you need some birds. The British Hen Welfare Trust, which rehouses battery fowl, should be up and running again post-lockdown. Telephone 01884 860084 or visit www.bhwt.org.uk to find your nearest hen-collection point. A map shows numerous places across the UK and if there are birds available. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust often has native-breed chicks for sale on its website, as well as links to all the different breed societies (www.rbst.org.uk).Visit Poultry Club of Great Britain (www.poultryclub.org) and Poultry Keeper (www.poultrykeeper.com)…

HIGH on the list of unexpected pleasures that have accompanied lockdown, Town Mouse must now add the experience of having the first dose of the vaccine. It took place in a dreary local hall—the architectural antithesis of vaccination in Salisbury Cathedral or Westminster Abbey—and everyone was masked. Nevertheless, the whole occasion felt extraordinarily uplifting. It was also so quick and easy that, having arrived with a few minutes to spare, I left just before the time of my appointment. It will be some days before I develop my immunity, and many weeks before I get my next jab, but, for the first time in many months, it felt exhilarating to do something positive to end the limbo in which we all find ourselves. Meanwhile, the return to school has revived…

‘To what end, he wondered, had the Divine created the stars in Heaven to fill a man with feelings of inspiration one day and insignificance the next?’ A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles Simple suppers Rhubarb and ginger-cake trifle • Cut four stalks of rhubarb into three-quarters-of-an-inch-sized pieces, sprinkle with sugar and roast in a moderately hot oven until tender. • Divide the cooked rhubarb between four serving glasses, keeping back a small amount to use as a topping. • Cut a ginger cake or loaf into slices half an inch thick. Cut out rounds and drop one into each glass, covering the rhubarb. • Pour custard into each of the glasses, almost to the brim, then top with whipped cream. Scatter with flaked almonds, then arrange the left-over rhubarb…

FURTHER to your article about Monopoly (London Life, March 3), when we were given the board game as children, my father—born in 1916—immediately recognised it as a game from his own childhood: Brer Fox an’ Brer Rabbit. He managed to track down a copy, on which the properties had names such as Lord Tomnoddy’s Grouse Moor, Solway Fisheries and Dottyville Lunatic Asylum. Chance is divided into two, Chance and the Poorhouse. Mother Earth is Go. As I understand it, a Liberal committee from the village of Newbie in Dumfries deemed it to be a perfect illustration of their political beliefs, so they formed the Newbie Game Company and began production. Apparently, David Lloyd George was cast as the reformer, Brer Fox, and the landlord as Brer Rabbit. The patent ran…

WHY did the cockerel cross the track? To get to the barn, where the chicken feed is now stored. Our Maran cock, Robespierre (‘the terror of the farmyard’), on discovering that the metal feed bin was not in its usual place in the woodshed, had gone off exploring to find it. Chickens? Often assumed to be the lowest in the pecking order of avian intelligence. The reality? The world’s most common farmed animal—there are 19 billion chickens on planet Earth—is not such a dumb-cluck. Quite apart from possessing the numeracy skills of a human three year old, chickens are able to recognise 90 others in the flock (whether live or in photographs) and even do a passable feathered puzzle-solving imitation of Sherlock Holmes. If something, such as the metal feed…

OVER the late summer of 1720, a financial scheme to reduce government debt collapsed in spectacular fashion. The South Sea Bubble—so called after the company involved—discredited the leading figures of the government and court. It also created the opportunity for an ambitious politician with a reputation for economic expertise to establish himself in power: Sir Robert Walpole. Until his fall more than 20 years later, he dominated British politics and became known as ‘prime minister’. ‘Walpole’s six-month imprisonment in the Tower turned him into a Whig celebrity’ Robert was born at the Walpole family seat of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, on August 26, 1676, the fifth of 15 children. His namesake father was a scholar, bibliophile and agricultural improver. In politics, Sir Robert Snr was a Whig, the faction advocating constitutional…

Hermione was asked to take on the Easter Egg Hunt after a particularly nasty disagreement over a giant Kinder egg. She runs the event like a military exercise, complete with a map that identifies good hiding places. During a rousing rendition of Thine Be The Glory, she tiptoes stealthily from the rear pew and distributes mini eggs around the churchyard in such generous quantities that it would be impossible for any child to go away empty-handed. As well as concealed spots in clumps of daffs and around the yew tree, she has identified more obscure locations (behind far-flung headstones and in the compost heap), which will ensure that there are plenty left over afterwards for her to ‘rescue before a dog gets them'. GK…

Big shrubs in big pots can be very splendid, but complacency can mean they get unjustly neglected and lose vigour. This can be easily remedied. Clean out the surface of the compost of the inevitable weeds. Then carefully scrape away the top couple of inches of the surface. Put it in a bucket and chuck it on a border. Replace the removed compost with fresh to the same depth. Wipe the pot with a damp cloth, without removing the patina of age. All is in readiness.…

My sometime stablemate in The Times, Prof Norman Hammond, has sent me an interesting suggestion regarding the Botticelli portrait (far right) sold by Sotheby's for £66.6 million (Art market, February 24). He writes: ‘The roundel (inset) looks to me as though it may be a miniature/micro mosaic, from the bold dark folds in the saint's robe. Although such micro-mosaics are famed from the Grand Tour period, they go back at least to the 14th century-there's a splendid example about 30cm high (12in) at the Dionysiou monastery on Mount Athos, again of a saint. I wonder if Botticelli's subject is displaying a proud acquisition from an eastward tour?' That is a good thought, but the sitter need not have travelled. Lorenzo the Magnificent surrounded himself with humanists and students of ancient…

THESE two deals are from the Spring Foursomes archives, kindly sent to me by Bridge historian Peter Hasenson. On the first, you are North and are somewhat surprised West opens the bidding One Diamond. At one table, North chose to make a trap pass. The auction ended right there and, after (shall we say) a rather uninspired defence, declarer actually made his contract. We’re travelling to the more exciting second table. Perhaps West should have led a Spade on grounds of passivity and cutting down ruffs. Declarer would have been unable to succeed on a Spade (or top Club) lead. West’s actual choice of a Diamond gave him a free finesse of dummy’s Knave, winning the first trick. At trick two, declarer ruffed a low Diamond, then led a Heart…

Whisky and woodland Famous Grouse will fund a three-year RSPB project to restore 741 acres near Abernethy, to the benefit of the rare black grouse. A previous 10-year partnership saw a 30% increase Green space This month, the National Forest -a 200-square-mile former coal-mining landscape in the Midlands linking two ancient forests, sponsored by Defra-celebrates planting its nine millionth tree Three little words Police are once more encouraging the public to download what3words -an app that divides the world into 57 trillion 10ft by 10ft squares, each with a unique three-word location-after a man stuck in the mud in Lancashire was rescued Paying tribute As part of a project to replace damaged gargoyles, a stone carving of a masked NHS worker has been added to Dorset's 11th-century Christchurch Priory Help…

Quiz of the week 1) For which Formula 1 team does Lewis Hamilton currently drive? 2) What is The Princess Royal's second name? 3) ‘No New Year's Day to celebrate, No chocolate-covered candy hearts to give away' are the opening lines of which pop song? 4) In which year did the Battle of Waterloo take place? 5) Some 100 wild what can be seen at Chillingham Castle in Northumberland? Word of the week Asmatographer (noun) A seller of songs or music Time to buy Ceramic Egg Cup Puffin, £21.99, Hannah Turner, available from PomPom (01799 252055; www.shoppompom.com) Spitfire Laptop Sleeve, £85, Asali (07376 399719; www.asalidesigns.co.uk) Spring Cheese Collection, £45, Paxton & Whitfield (01451 823460; www.paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk) Another log on the fire By Oliver Preston…

E ASTER is the moment at which the tourist season in Britain conventionally gets under way. That makes the current universal closure of visitor attractions all the more depressing. Better times, however, are hopefully not too far away. Indeed, the approaching end of lockdown, the arrival of spring and the present restrictions on foreign travel make it likely that many more British visitors than usual will be going to cultural attractions in the UK in the months ahead. They will not, however, be able to visit museums and country houses until at least mid May and, when they can, it’s likely that such places will be operating at a much reduced level. These circumstances promise a wholly unfamiliar pattern of visiting cultural attractions in 2021. It’s likely, for example, that…

Sir Robert Walpole remains Britain's longest-serving Prime Minister; in the modern era, Margaret Thatcher’s 11 years was the longest continuous run. Worldwide, the longest-serving PM is Cambodia's Hun Sen, who took office in 1985 George Canning is the shortest-serving British PM; he died from pneumonia a mere 119 days after taking office in April 1827 Spencer Perceval (1809–12) was shot dead in the lobby of the House of Commons by an aggrieved Liverpool merchant, John Bellingham, who was later hanged for his pains The Duke of Wellington described his first cabinet meeting as PM, in 1834, as: ‘An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them' It's claimed that Sir Robert Peel’s ambitious father said: ‘Bob, you dog, if you do…

SEVERAL years ago, the designer Cleve West won the Best in Show award at the Chelsea Flower Show with a garden full of sublime plant combinations and a little-known plant that caused garden mavens to swoon. Tall and elegant with stout pale-yellow stems and domes of zingy acid-yellow flowers, the majestic specimen was as unfamiliar to visitors as its name: Pastinaca sativa. Most people were surprised to discover that the plant, a member of the umbellifer family, was a parsnip, which had been allowed to flower and then dug up from Mr West’s allotment. The appeal of the flowering vegetable was the strong, clean architecture of its stems combined with the open airiness of its flowers. This alliance of a bold structure with soft, often frothy, flowers that have an…

HOW should we do this?’ Zam is looking both worried and confused. ‘I’ve been told we should stop eating anything white.’ He is slicing from the latest loaf. ‘Bread and cheese are white,’ I say firmly. ‘But this is brown,’ he protests. ‘If that was on a paint chart, it would be buff, stone, warm… and definitely in the whites.’ His first step is to order some bathroom scales. When they arrive, he stands on them and declares a fairly ambitious target. At lunchtime, I find him eating a bagel with chicken-liver pâté. ‘What?’ He looks at me: ‘I’m not having a second bagel.’ ‘I think we need soup for lunch and a little grilled fish with steamed vegetables for supper,’ I say with more confidence than I feel, especially…