Letters to the Editor - May 2009

The article on the daffodils of Dymock and Kempley (March) brought back happy memories of a Gloucestershire childhood.

I attended Newent Grammar School — just 180 boys and girls. The school crest had daffodils in two quadrants, our ‘houses’ were Nelson and Drake, and their colours were the green and yellow of the daffodils.

I’m sure our school song must be the only one in the world to mention those daffodils. It was composed in the war by, I think, Alexander Brent-Smith:
“When the heroes of our country sailed the oceans of the earth
They treasured in their memories the homes that gave them birth.
The homes upon the rugged cliffs, the homes by riverside,
To keep them safe they lived and fought. To keep them safe they died.
[Repeat last two lines]
When the time shall come for us to use the freedoms we have gained
We’ll treasure in our memories the school where we trained,
The school within the Severn Vale, beside the Forest hills,
The school amid the apple trees and fields of daffodils.”
[Repeat last two lines]
I can’t lay my hands on the music but, as I hum it now, it can still bring tears to my eyes.

Nigel Peacock, Conwy

The article on wild daffodils in March reminds me of a very special day in the 1930s. I was a pupil at Ribston Hall GHS in Gloucester.

Our headmistress, Lucy Whitaker, had a farm at Redmarley D’Abitot, a few miles east of Dymock. One beautiful spring morning, when morning assembly ended, we were told to go and put on our outdoor clothes and await further instructions. Those of us who paid for a midday meal were instructed to collect a lunch pack from the kitchen. Then the whole school of about 250 girls plus the teachers filed out to a row of waiting buses. Our destination was a complete mystery.

It was only when we were well on our way that the prefect on our bus told us we were going out to see the daffodils on Miss Whitaker’s farm. Just like the daffodils in the photograph on page 31 of the March issue, there were sheets of wild daffodils at Redmarley D’Abitot. It was an unforgettable sight.
Looking back, I realise that Miss Whitaker must have paid for that expedition out of her own pocket. She was a remarkable person who we loved and revered and, as I feel sure you can understand, she had some very unusual ideas on what constituted a good education.

Dorothy Dyett

The Shropshire countryside (April issue) is magical, and was the inspiration for A E Housman and Mary Webb (my name is from her novel Precious Bane, and we have the same birthday, 25 March, Lady Day).

A stroll to the top of the Long Mynd, Pole Bank, is romantic for its peace and quiet; but for the song of skylarks and ‘grousing’ grouse, you can hear a pin drop.

On a clear day we have seen the summit of Snowdon but you need binoculars and to know where to look. Shropshire has been called ‘the graveyard of ambition’ but who cares when romance is in the air, pure and free?

Mrs Jancis Mander, Shrewsbury

I have long wanted to thank people such as Countryman reader Mr C T Walker (Letters, February) as I frequently walk the rights of way in Ceredigion such as those he clears. With regard to small mammals in the undergrowth, my retriever becomes wildly excited as he discovers one, but of course by the time I get there it has disappeared.

Joan Howes, Basingstoke

I was surprised and not a little disappointed to read through the January and February issues and find no article to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the birth of the poet Robert Burns, often referred to as the Ploughman-Poet. What more of a ‘countryman’ could you ask for?

You can imagine my utter disbelief when I read the article on the daisy in ‘Wild About Britain’ by Janet Merza, to discover no reference whatsoever to one of the most charming poems in literature (I nearly wrote Scottish literature, but the poetry of Robert Burns has an international reputation), namely ‘To a Mountain-Daisy, on Turning One Down, with the Plough, in April 1786’. This is a companion piece to its more celebrated sibling, ‘To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest, with the Plough, November, 1785’. In one publication of the poems, the comment is made:
“The mountain daisy was composed as the poet has related, at the plough, the field where he crushed the ‘wee, modest crimson-tipped flower’ lies next to that in which he turned up the nest of the mouse, and both are on the farm of Mossgiel, Ayrshire.”

The crimson tips referred to in the opening line of the poem are very noticeable in the illustration in your article on the daisy. Incidentally, my copy of the Scots Dialect Dictionary has this entry:
Gowan: the generic name for the daisy; the common or mountain daisy.

Mrs Jan Morgan, Ceredigion

I wonder how many of your readers share my happy memories of a very close childhood relationship with a countryman grandfather? In the 1930s, I was blessed with just that, and spent many years in his company. He trained me in many arts such as coppicing, lighting fires in the wet without paraffin, hedge-laying, the use and care of ferrets, fishing in the River Cuckmere in East Sussex, and how to avoid falling in.

One day we were in a wood together and he asked me to cut down a small tree with his axe. I was right-handed, and as other timber was in my way, I couldn’t swing the axe. Grandfather said “Well, use it the other way round, boy,” and when I suggested that it wasn’t possible, he showed me how, and then quietly made me practise until I could do the same. I can still do it.

I loved him dearly. I now have the joy of a young grandson of my own, and fully realise how special my boyhood was.

Clive Buss, Chichester

For the last thirty-eight years, on my return visits to the Sussex countryside, I have observed a decrease in the number of songbirds and a corresponding marked increase in the number of grey squirrels and magpies.

Grey squirrels are indeed extremely destructive to young birds. As a boy, I lost many families of blue tits, dragged from their nest boxes, by these ‘tree rats’. They are not a native species and as such should be eliminated. The reintroduction of a tail bounty would help.

Magpies, however, are indigenous and have a right to the countryside. Their non-selective eating habits, especially on human garbage, has perhaps led to the increase in their numbers. I suggest a springtime cull could be introduced, while nesting.

A number 5 shot is more than adequate to penetrate the sticks and mud of their substantial structures. With regard to cats and raptors, although they undoubtedly take a toll on birdlife, they are very effective in controlling the rodent population.

There are many factors causing songbird decline, but a reduction in the grey squirrel and magpie population would help reverse the trend.

Ian Johnson, Canada

I am trying to trace a Countryman article on billhook styles by Jack Wilson. Unfortunately, I don’t know the year of publication or the issue, so if any readers know of it, I would be prepared to pay a fee for a copy of the article. I am researching edge tools, with billhooks and axes as the topic subjects.

Jim Rea, by email

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