Letters to the Editor - January 2010

I read with interest about harvesting peat on the Hebrides (‘The Way We Were’, November) and I would like to share with readers the days seventy years ago as a child cutting peat with my father on to the fells between Slaidburn and Bentham on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border.

We always called it turf and in fact the place where it was stored was always called the turf house. We used two special spades: one was very sharp and heart-shaped which was used to cut off the bent and heather and was called a sloughing spade; the other had a side on it which cut the blocks of turf into slices. There was also a special turf barrow to wheel the turf nearer to the road.

Our job as kids was to spread it out on the bent to dry then, if I remember rightly, it was put into little stooks to dry the other side. Nearer to the top of the pit it was rather soft and spongy but lower down it was very dark and firm.
When the peat was dry, the horse was geared up, and special turf shelving was put on the cart, I guess for a higher load to be put on.

What a wonderful environment it was up on the fells, the little red grouse scuttling along the well-trodden sheep tracks, calling ‘go back, go back’, before rising to a noise I can only describe as the clapping of hands, but in this case the flapping of wings against their tiny bodies. Then they would fly off and settle again in the heather.

To gather in the peat was more important than the hay harvest, as the peat would keep the fire going through summer and winter. With a family of thirteen there were plenty of helpers, but all needed to be fed and we only had the fire to do the cooking on.

I am going back four generations, but maybe to us older ones the past is richer than the future.
J M Breaks, Slaidburn

As a small boy I enjoyed reading comics about Buffalo Bill and his fabulous adventures. But who would have guessed back then that my ‘hero’ and his associates would be saving the planet by decimating the vast huge herds of bison that used to roam the North American Continent.

Surely this thought is no dafter than that of the latest proposal by Lord Stern of Brentford that we should all give up eating meat because of the methane gas being ‘passed’ by cows and sheep. My heart goes out to the farming community, who are already struggling to cope without having to contend with silly proposals from people who appear to have little idea of what they are talking about. What with wind generation and now this, what other insane idea will they next come out with?
Dave Haskell, Boncath

I refer to Leslie Cram’s ‘Hedgehog or heffalump?’ article (November) and would like to point out that unfortunately there is a more serious side that readers should be aware of concerning our spiky friends.

The latest survey by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species suggests a twenty-two per cent fall in the number of hedgehogs since 2001.

The fall in numbers since the early 1990s looks to be as much as fifty per cent in some regions. If this trend continues the population will shrink even further in the next decade.

But we can all help these endearing little mammals by making our gardens more hedgehog-friendly. Gardens make up between a third and a half of the green space in urban areas and are very important to many mammals, birds and invertebrates. Advice issued by the Hedgehog Preservation Society includes:

Avoid man-made hazards and eliminate dangers as much as possible. For example, hedgehogs can swim if they land up in your garden pond but if they can’t get out again they will drown — so create a slipway. Also, their inquisitive nature can get them into trouble, ie getting caught in netting, getting their heads stuck in food cans and plastic rings.

Have a small corner of your garden as a ‘wildlife-friendly sanctuary’. Leaves and brushwood, for example, are suitable for hedgehogs to nest in and to supplement their natural diet of slugs, snails, worms etc.

Seek advice from your local wildlife centre if you see a hedgehog wandering around during the day; it’s usually a sign that something is wrong.

Put up hedges instead of fences so they can move around — they can travel up to two miles (3 km) a night foraging for food and tend to ‘do the rounds’ in several gardens within an area.
Jill Stanton-Huxton, member of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society

Your November editorial has brought welcome relief to me. At last I have found someone who thinks as I do, on matters of green energy. Now all we have to do is identify someone with the political clout to make it happen.

For years I have been turning over in my mind how we could best use the God-given energy of solar and wind power. Having had a problem with a salesman from a solar heating firm, I began to despair about progress in this field in what remains of my lifetime (I am now eighty-four). The salesman tried to get me to sign a contract which provided year-round hot water, but would take fifteen years to pay off. By that time, if still living, the solar panels would need to be replaced. I did not sign the contract.

I have since held the view that if the government supplied us all with British-made solar panels, two for domestic use and two to be linked up together to supply solar power to the national grid, this would, in effect, make every roof-top part of a solar-energised national grid. Several million little power sub-stations.

Now to take your point, if we also link roof-top wind turbines for every home, factory and office, we could be cooking completely without gas. By visualising these turbines alongside the satellite dishes you have solved a problem. They do not need to be bigger than the readily accepted dishes we now have. There just needs to be a lot of them. In a few years they would become part of normality in building requirements, and accepted as the power source of the future.

Think also about the prospects of employment this could provide. Manufacture, supply and maintenance could get this country out of its present problems and back to a measure of prosperity.

Finally, I would like to suggest that we might ask a well-known kindred spirit to help in setting it all up. Mr Dick Strawbridge seems to me to be just the type the country needs. A “stop talking and get on with it” sort of man.

Thank you once again for restoring my faith in the future for us all on this Earth
John R Smith, East Sussex

Robin Page (November) profoundly sets out the paramount problem besetting life on our planet — that of human population.

He is quite correct that this is at present a politically taboo subject which has been banned from agendas of international conferences on the environment and is never mentioned in debates on our national future.

Instead there is focus on the ostrich-like myth of ‘sustainability’. None of the laudable efforts for ‘conservation’ will be of any lasting value unless accompanied by a solution to the root problem.

If the other ‘sensible voices’ mentioned by Robin may be broadcast far and wide this will be invaluable for not only our country­side but for the world. His lead should be followed and strongly supported.
Anthony Flint, Lurgashall

Once again I read with interest the comments by Humphrey Phelps and Robin Page about the concerning demise of our countryside and the state of farming in this country. Living in the countryside as we do, fortunately, in amongst the fields I frequently become depressed at what modern methods and mechanisation have and are doing to the rural areas.

I reel in horror each autumn as I survey the mangled remains of what were hedges turned into a bunch of splintered sticks affording little cover or habitat for wildlife as I breathe the lovely-smelling chemicals drifting across our garden (no need for smelling salts).

I often think back to my youth and the way things were and still should be, bemoaning the change for worse — my sister reminds me that I was born fifty years too late.
Mrs I Chapple, Chippenham

I must protest strongly at December’s ghastly cover. I feel that a beloved lifetime friend has been assaulted and publicly shamed. This is the sort of Christmas card picture which was around in the 1960s and ’70s for people to send or receive when no religious content was required. It is brash, ugly and without artistic merit. When I think of all the wonderful photographs published over the years since I first saw The Countryman in its green covers, in the hands of my parents, I find it extremely sad that none could be found to grace the front of so respected and loved a publication.
Miss Critchell Britten, by email

Regarding Arthur Mee’s Childrens’ Encyclopaedia (March), I have a twenty-volume set dating from 1912-14. It was bought for my mother’s elder sister; she died young and it passed to my mother.

I was raised on it in the post-World War Two years when there was nothing else like it. Does any museum or library collect such volumes today?

In D Richard Evans’ very interesting article Ancient Harvest Customs (October) he states that Hallowe’en or All Hallows’ Day is on 31 October. All Hallows’ Day(All Saints’ Day) is on 1 November. The day before, 31 October, is All Hallows’ Eve or Hallowe’en.
David Taylor, Exeter

I was very interested in October’s excellent article ‘Wild about Britain’ on heather (Calluna vulgaris) by Janet Merza. However, the following sentence from the article is not very accurate: “Sadly the exact recipe has been lost along with Picts themselves under the advancing tribes that moved up from the south of Britain.”

The Viking influence in Scotland (also England) is often understated. The Vikings dominated much of the British Isles while King Alfred was in refuge in Athelney, Somerset, until the peace with Guthrum in AD 865. See Asser’s life of King Alfred, trans. S. Keynes, M. Lapidge 1988, p171. Also Orkneyinga saga is a primary source for Scotland and Orkney, trans. H Palsson and P Edwards 1981, although there is a lack of historical sources for Scotland. Nevertheless, the corpus of archaeological evidence cannot be ignored, a comprehensive overview for Scotland is provided in: ‘The Vikings in Scotland an archaeological survey’ by J Graham-Campbell and C E Batley 1998.
Vincent Trewartha, Wallingford, Oxfordshire

I was interested to read the reference to GM crops in Humphrey Phelps’s article (Nov). GM seeds have the disadvantage of being sterile. Farmers have to buy seed each year from the producers. This has been catastrophic for those in developing countries where they do not have adequate resources. It also means the producers, big multi-nationals, have unacceptable control over supplies and price.

Imported GM maize has, for a number of years, been used by farmers to feed their cattle. It occurred to me that genetically modified organisms could be entering the foodchain via this source and this I queried with the Food Standards Agency. According to the FSA (August 2004) the use of GM maize is permitted under EU regulations and has to be clearly labelled as such, providing the farmer with information to enable him to make informed choices. How widespread its use is I am unaware but apparently it is cheaper.

The FSA further stated that all food products derived from GM sources must be labelled. The exceptions to these rules include “foods produced using processing aids that have been obtained with the help of GM technology (e.g. some cheeses may be produced using the GM enzyme chymosin) and products from animals fed GM animal feed (e.g. milk, meat and eggs)”, some of the most commonly consumed items.

For a number of years genetically modified crops have been used extensively in food products in the United States where obesity has become a problem, and which is also now common in this country. I enquired whether any research had been carried out as to a possible link between obesity and the use of GM food but the FSA was not aware of any.

Fresh and processed products derived from the approved Bt11 sweet maize line were approved by the EU in 2004. Apparently other GM food or ingredients that can be legally used for food in the EU are those derived from specific varieties of GM soya, maize, oilseed rape, cotton and tomato, and may include soya oil, soya flour, corn starch and glucose syrup, commonly used items in the production of food. It appears careful reading of the packaging is required and questions raised.
Mrs Lena Poppe, Carshalton

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