Letters to the Editor - November 2008

It has been an exceptional year for that obnoxious plant weed, ragwort.

In the summer of 1940 my battalion, having been rescued from the French, was put on coastal defence in the Yarmouth and Hunstanton area. In my off-duty time I used to wander along the foreshore and was struck by the number of young cuckoos being reared in meadow pipit nests. To help out the foster parents, I collected cinnabar moth caterpillars which were feeding on ragwort plants.

When I began farming in 1949, I cleared my fields of ragwort by pulling up the flowering plants and relied on my sheep to eat the first-year rosettes. Alas, now the fields I no longer farm are covered again.

What has happened to the cinnabar moth? The striking orange-and-black-striped caterpillars were immune to predators, I should imagine.

H Groom, Matlock

I was delighted with the reflections of Humphrey Phelps on the joys — and frustrations — of haymaking.

I was taken back some sixty years to haymaking, a little grey ‘Fergie’ and the lovely feeling of smelling and seeing a crop of hay ‘well got’.

There was one part of his piece which I found of great interest — his mention of a wild service tree. They are rare in Britain, and when I was administrative officer of the Lincolnshire Trust for Nature Conservation we bought a whole forest because there were examples in it. Their wood is very hard — it was used formerly for making gears and cogs for mill wheels — and is so heavy that a seven-foot table I have made of it takes four strong men to lift.

Paul Berkeley, by email

On a recent visit to All Saints Church at Siddington, near Macclesfield, Cheshire, I came across an occupation I had never heard of. Contained in a church leaflet was an article regarding occupations within the parish and one was a ‘whitesmith’. I looked it up in the dictionary and sure enough there it was: a man who works with tin or a metal polisher. Well I never! Have any readers ever heard of a whitesmith?

Jack Ogden, Manchester

In the August edition, Sylvia J Gurney asked for a solution to stop visiting cats. I have found small pieces of orange peel scattered around to be successful. I would imagine any citrus peel could also
be as useful.

Eileen Wilkinson, Wilmslow

In the summer of 1941, Peter Joyce and Tony Bishop and I, all members of the 150th Field Regiment RA, were exploring the woods beyond our nissen-hutted camp at Red Hill, Ballycarry, near Larne in Northern Ireland. Strolling along a rough path, we came upon a woodcock and her chicks. They broke into a run, then suddenly the bird lowered herself over a chick, grasped it between her thighs and flew off, legs dangling.

Tony ran back to his hut to get a camera; Peter and I sat motionless on a log, hoping the bird would return. Meanwhile the other chicks nestled under a fallen log before scuttling into the dead beech leaves and ferns beside the path. Tony returned with his Box Brownie. We waited in vain, but we couldn’t even find the chicks, they were so well camouflaged.

Peter wrote to his father, H S Joyce, a well-known Devon naturalist. Back came the reply: “You’ve seen something remarkable — the carrying of chicks by woodcocks is very controversial.”

I’ve never seen any further comment on the subject in the last sixty-seven years and I wonder if ornithologists still regard it as controversial? I don’t.

F Allen, Bristol

I read with interest Martin Sayers article ‘Battling for bridleways’ in the September issue. I feel quite strongly that the riders themselves should organise themselves in the area in which they ride instead of expecting other people to maintain the bridleways for them.

Tony Smith, Bridport, Dorset

In the September issue, one of the many excellent articles, ‘The Man From the Mearns’, written by Kenneth Steven, contained the following remark: “There are many peewits in Gibbon’s writing — the Scots word for lapwing”.

I just wish to correct the impression given, that the word peewit is peculiar to Scotland.

This is not so. It was the only word used for this bird in Derbyshire during the 1930s and 1940s, and even nowadays.

Since we lived near the Nottinghamshire border, I can vouch for the fact that it was also used in that county. My parents, who came from Cheshire, also exclusively used this word, plus my grandfather who came from Wales.

It is rather sad that, for several decades, it has been only occasionally that we have sighted any of these birds.

R J Mellor, Derby

The article on Soay sheep (September) was very interesting. We own a tourist attraction called Cardigan Island Coastal Farm Park (www.cardiganisland.com) in Gwbert, Cardigan, West Wales. The farm park is on a very scenic headland which overlooks Cardigan Island, which is about 250 yards offshore. Visitors mainly visit us to view grey seals and bottlenose dolphins in the wild.

There was a wild flock of Soay sheep on Cardigan Island from about 1946 until recently.

However, about four years ago, numbers suddenly dropped from around forty to seven over one winter, then to two the following year. Now there are none, as far as I can see.

Over the same period, a large flock of about 400 Canada geese started grazing the grassy forty-acre island, something they had never done in the past.

The only drinking water on the island comes from a dewpond, and we had two very dry winters in 2004 and 2006.

My guess is that the geese drank and fouled what little water there was, causing the rapid demise of
the sheep.

Luckily, we already had a small flock of Soay sheep at the farm park, so visitors can view them on the headland overlooking Cardigan Island.

They are certainly wild. They scatter as soon as someone approaches, and need particularly good fencing.

Lyn Jenkins, Cardigan

The pennyfarthing picture (July) reminded me of my father, who rode one in the 1890s and never tired of regaling the grandchildren with his tales.

For example, he was cycling down a country lane which was said to be haunted. It was getting dark and something or someone kept hitting him on the back, and the faster he pedalled the harder it struck.

Terrified, he was going so fast that he failed to make the sharp bend under a railway bridge and went over a hedge into a farm midden — and then the slapping stopped.

What was it? The pennyfarthing had solid rubber tyres. The end of the one on the big wheel had come loose and, every time it went round, it whacked him in the back!

Dorothy Cox

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