Letters to the Editor - February 2010

Robin Page’s observation (December) of the great spotted woodpecker becoming more common is correct.

In the last decade we have been feeding a pair of these woodpeckers and each year they have produced two young. We believe they are more common because they live off not only food put out for garden birds but they even have a supply of small tits to feed to their young.

I live not far from Wyre Forest and have over the years planted many different trees and shrubs, making it a good habitat for birds. Other landowners in the vicinity are also restoring traditional fruit orchards. The woodpeckers here have been making their marks everywhere, especially on old cherry and damson trees. How these trees still fruit is beyond us when the birds hollow out holes to the trees’ core.

I don’t really relish these birds living here as they do so much damage not only to bird houses and small birds but the telegraph pole, and the rustic oak bench is also getting pecked to bits. This last year so many tits have been viciously attacked by woodpeckers while on the food hangers.

Not only do woodpeckers go for the nuts but they enjoy chiselling away and eating fat balls; they can eat one large fat ball in a day. They don’t like to feed if humans are about but we watch from the window.

In the breeding season they bring their young to the nursery on the front lawn where other young birds are brought. They feed their young with crumbs of bread, fat pellets and ground-up nuts. They are good parents, showing the young how to tap the lawn all over for insects to come up and how to climb the telegraph pole to drum for earwigs etc. Few predators attack them so they are successful.
H Wooldridge, Worcestershire

I was very interested in Kenneth Steven’s article ‘Hooligans of the hedgerow’ (December) about the robin. It brought back memories of two encounters I had.

The first was when I was working part-time at a local garden nursery. Something caught my attention and it was a minute or two before I realised what it was. A robin was dive-bombing something in the grass, and I was able to identify another robin lying prone. A colleague climbed over the fence into the field and rescued the robin, and we put it in a basket to recover. Sadly, it was too badly injured to survive.

I personally had not seen such a cruelty, and it changed my mind about the lovely robins.
The second encounter was when I heard a bird strike our conservatory window, sadly a common occurrence, despite what I do to avoid it. I went outside to search, but could find nothing, so assumed that whatever it was had safely flown away.
Some twenty minutes later I went into the garden to hang out some washing and heard a strange noise like splashing water. I searched round and then found to my surprise, a robin with wings outstretched trying to stay afloat in our imitation old-fashioned water-pump water feature.

I scooped it up and wrapped it in a towel to dry it off, and kept it in the conservatory where it was warm. After a short time, and when it was dry, I took the robin outside to release it. I was so surprised to see and hear another robin, perched up in the conifers at the back of our garden. I released the previously wet robin and they flew off together. It was so heartwarming. Faith restored.
Mrs J Bewick, Hailsham

In response to Jim Allen’s query (Letters, December) regarding a variety of plum called magnum bonum — yes, I remember it. When I was a child some eighty years ago, in the village of Shemington where I still live, I remember my parents talking about it. I do not know whether our plum tree, which bore yellow plums, was a magnum bonum (also yellow) but certainly my mother obtained magnum bonum plums from other people in the village if our tree was having a bad year, and she bottled them and also made jam with them.

I do not suppose that there are any trees left after such a long time.
V I Hands, Banbury, Oxon

Gervase Phinn might enjoy my recent educational experience.

A delightful group of ten year olds were visiting Priest’s House Museum, Wimborne. Though well-prepared by their school in almost all areas, the children had never seen Victorian pennies before. After looking at the Queen’s head, we turned our coins over to look at Britannia. A little voice beside me piped up: “This side there’s a woman in a wheelchair.”

Incidentally, we also show them the whitesmiths’ forge in the museum, where the people of Wimborne used to have their copper saucepans relined with tin.
Miss B A Page, Dorset

With reference to the article ‘The Great Escape’ (November). As a schoolboy at the end of the war in 1946, food was still on ration. We kept rabbits and chickens, and at one time had forty hens. Should one go broody we would sit her on some china eggs and at the appropriate time place day-old chicks under her — I never knew a hen to reject her new family.

We were not country people and we were at home in the East End of London. Our day-old chicks came from Petticoat Lane.

In 1981 I was a countryside ranger and was presented with a cardboard box containing eight orphan ducklings. I took them where I knew of a mallard who had only one of her brood remaining. The family managed to get five of the batch to advanced juveniles before I was posted to another part of the park.
R Piddington, Eastbourne

I refer to the article (October) about heather, and its uses. There was one other I have heard of which wasn’t mentioned. Apparently a large clump of twiggy heather would be tied on a rope attached to a large rock which somebody would lower down the chimney to dislodge the soot en route.
Ann Tivey, Stapleford

Regarding the item on peat in ‘The Way We Were’ (November). As a young child in Ireland, all our home cooking and heat was obtained from peat taken from the bogland. About March to May my father cleared the top soil and cut down­wards with a tool called a ‘slane’ (a type of short-handled sharp spade). As he cut out the peats, which were quite heavy and wet, he threw them upwards to be caught by a helper on the bank.

Quite often he would come upon a large trunk of oak tree buried in the bog for thousands of years which had to be removed, the centre of the wood still hard having been preserved by the bog soil. This wood was called ‘deal’ and after drying was wonderful for kindling fires.

The peats were spread on the bank and then propped against each other in threes. After about a week they were built into a bigger structure called ‘windhows’, a few weeks later built into clamps and shortly after taken home to a turf shed. Bread was baked in a pot oven when the peat coals glowed red and also boiled pots which hung over the fire. It was backbreaking work procuring the peat, but very satisfying to sit by a warm, cosy fire.

Many of these bogs are no longer used, having been cut away and replanted with trees. Some again being kept for nature reserves, a great many species of flora and fauna flourished in these peat bogs. It would be a loss to see them totally vanish.
Margaret Riddell, Coventry

Having read the article on peat, I am reminded of my grandfather who was a thatcher by trade.

He lived at Belstone, a little moorland village on Dartmoor near Okehampton. He had an area of peat bank where he cut his peat each spring with the special peat iron. The peat was left on the moor for several months.

One day he and his family would go on his pony and trap to collect it, and would also have a picnic. Having brought it home, it was stacked up in his ‘linny’, as he called his open shed.

In the winter when the peat was burnt in open fires, it scented the village with its peaty aroma. I think he must have stopped the peat cutting in the early 1940s.
Mrs A C Coff, Exeter

I have read the letters in recent months regarding the pond in Mill Hill and the terrapins there.

The pond flooded in the rains some years ago and cut off Mill Hill, Broadway. No traffic could get out of the side roads due to water rushing down the hill and forming a lake under the railway bridge.

The pond has been filled in for several years now. The two ponds along Totteridge Lane are still there and the lane is much the same. There are two wooden signs saying ‘No Fishing’.

One evening I was driving past on the way to Totteridge and was amused to see a heron perched on the top of the sign waiting for a catch. Totteridge Lane is much the same as in my youth.
Robert J Selway, Edgeware

An excellent January issue. Despite the frosty cover it warmed me up on a cold Kent day. I think the letter writer complaining about the December cover was a ‘grinch’. I’m a staunch churchman but couldn’t see anything wrong with the cover, and, as for it ‘lacking artistic merit’ — has Miss Britten never seen anything by Tracey Emin?
Alan G Edwards, Whitstable

In response to Miss Britten’s somewhat rude letter about December’s cover (Jan letters) I can only think that art, like beauty, must be in the eye of the beholder. I found the cover glowing and welcoming with a real Christmassy flavour. Cards of a similar style were not just around in the 1960s and 1970s as Miss Britten states but are still very much available today — thankfully — and I for one enjoy receiving them. Thank you Countryman for continually providing not only excellent covers but extremely interesting articles.
D Turnbull, Gloucester, by email

Thank you for such a lovely December magazine and such a beautiful cover. I always look forward to receiving the magazine and it never disappoints. I have just read the letter in January’s magazine from the lady who objected so strongly to the cover… it takes all sorts!
Kathy Chin, Crowthorne, Berks

My thanks for all the other letters of support regarding December’s cover — we will never please everyone! Covers provide our first contact with potential new readers so it is essential that we experiment from time to time and we welcome readers’ views. — PJ

I recently ordered a copy of an old book A Brother to the Ox, the autobiography of Fred Kitchen. It was a book set for my school’s literature exam some years ago. I must admit that I didn’t find it of interest at the time, but now, after some years, I have read it and quite enjoyed it. If anyone is interested in farming and what life was like in the early part of the twentieth century, I recommend this book.
L Sunderland, Crawley

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