Letters to the Editor - January 2012

The article ‘How I became a country lover’ by Peter Crowter (Dec) spurred me on to tell you my story.

I was born eighty-eight years ago on a lonely farm midway between two villages in Gloucestershire. As I grew up, life was never dull; a mixed farm with everything from the poultry roaming in the farmyard to the six heavy working horses in the stable.

My whole life has been spent in the country and the county of Gloucest­er­shire. I have visited many other parts of the British Isles with quite a few trips to Yorkshire.

After losing my husband, a true countryman, four years ago, I moved to Cirencester to be near to my daughter. On my eighty-eighth birthday she took me on a trip through the villages and called at the old farm. Its present state horrified me, but I still have my many memories.

Joyce Partridge, Cirencester

The article ‘Grandma’s Country Cottage’ (Nov) brought back memories of my primitive childhood in the early 1940s at School House in Leighton under the Wrekin.

The only mod con we had was electricity; water for washing was from a butt in the backyard, which we shared with ‘wrigglers’ (mosquito larvae). When we dipped a bowl in, they disappeared, to swim to the surface as soon as our backs were turned.

From the age of eight it was my daily task to carry two buckets of water from the village pump, a distance away. When it snowed, I pulled a sledge, losing some of the lovely spring water on the way home.

When friends came, a three-year-old boy ran to his mother with “Mummy, mummy, the upstairs lavatory is outside”.

In spite of the many inconveniences, they were wonderful times.

Jancis Mander, Shropshire

Thank you for the really interesting September issue.

Among the many articles, the one on barrage balloons brought back memories. My father and mother had friends called Edwards who had moved to a cottage between Chelten­ham and Gloucester.

It was one of a group of about four down an unmade lane and at the end was a barrage balloon. The friendly crew called the balloon Lucy and painted this in large letters across the side. After a short while they were told to paint this out in case it was used by enemy planes as a landmark.

Did barrage balloons continue to be used throughout the war? I just cannot remember.

Jo Redgwell, Petersfield

It was wonderful to see that the glossy ibis returned to Stanpit Marsh, Christchurch, Dorset, recently for the second year.

In 2011 he was escorting two others. They spent two weeks feeding up on baby crabs and fish before they finally flew off to continue on their migration to Africa.

Let us hope next year we will see even more of this spectacular rare visitor.

Clinton Whale, Christchurch

I write in reference to the comments about old church swing gates.

The one at Birchington near Newton Abbot, South Devon, is unique in that it has a room called a vestry over the gate. Birchington used to be on the main A38 trunk road through the South West before it was bypassed. The vestry room was to provide accommodation for travell­ing clergy etc to stay overnight.

Also there was the old Exeter Inn nearby for meals, now long gone.

H W J Harris, Totnes

I was intrigued by the article (Aug) about wallabies on an island in Loch Lomond, rather a long way from their native habitat in eastern Australia.

Some years ago, I had a batch(Kiwi for summer cottage) on Kawau Island, forty miles (65 km) north of Auckland in the Hauraki Gulf.

Most batch owners have the perennial problem of cutting the grass as a fire hazard precaution, but we had no such problem. The wallabies emerged each night to nibble the lawn to a fine sward — as they also did to any attempted vegetable patch.

Wallabies are not native to New Zealand, but were imported during the nineteenth century by Sir George Grey, when governor of this country.

He bought Kawau from Maori, built himself a fine mansion in Bonacord Harbour, which stands to this day as a museum, and attempted to stock the island with exotica such as zebras, deer and birds, including the Australian wallaby and the kookaburra whose distinctive call still wakes one of a morning. The other imports did not survive.

Michael Bostock, Napier, NZ

In the November issue there was an article ‘War memorials of Romney Marsh’ about a memorial to a Polish pilot. Unfortunately the pilot was incorrectly named; his full name was Mieczyslaw Waskicwicz.

Julie Brewer, Sittingbourne

Many years ago, two men working on my father’s farm were moving chicken arks one day when, to their horror, a rat ran out from under one and disappeared up the trouser leg of the younger man.

Petrified, he clasped his hands round the top of his leg and yelled: “Quick, do summat.”

“It’s alreight lad,” came the comforting reply. “You just ’old it theer while Ah fetch mi gun.”

J K Laprell