Letters to the Editor - November 2009

Humphrey Phelp’s feature on moles in the June issue reminded me of my experiences in London during the Second World War.

I worked in the accounts and wages department of a north-west London factory for two years during the Blitz and, for safety and security, our office was transferred to a custom-built metal cage in the cellar beneath the factory. Access was via a tunnel under the road, across from the main block, and hither we walked each day, carrying our cardboard-boxed gas masks. Soon we became known as ‘the Moles’, a name which was not confined to daytime only.

At my home, a cycle ride away from the factory, night hours were frequently spent together with another family in a half-buried corrugated tin Anderson shelter by a short, right-angled tunnel of the same material. Wearily we would complain about the damp, dark, cold conditions plus the noisy drone of the enemy overhead dropping death and destruction, and speculate about the possibility of not even having jobs to go to next day. But my father compared our ‘conditions’ favourably with those of his trench in the First World War, and slept till the all-clear.

In October 1941 I joined the Women’s Land Army and was drafted to a farm in Herefordshire. Alighting at the neat country station in the warm autumn sunshine with a backdrop of the Malvern Hills, I felt I had arrived in heaven. I continued to ‘farm’ in that beautiful county for the next thirty years.
One day some local lads complained that they couldn’t play football or cricket in a small riverside meadow as it was always full of ‘oonty tumps’ which came up overnight, so I learnt a new name for the ‘gentleman in black velvet’.

At haymaking time, though, we had another name for the small, industrious creatures whose oonty tumps blunted our mower blades.

Thank you, Humphrey, for these nostalgic memories, and for all the others which you write about in my favourite magazine.
Mrs Olive Knight, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire

I refer to the letter from Sue Martin (August) concerning a creature she saw in a pond in Mill Hill, North West London. It was a terrapin. People buy them as pets for their children, who soon get tired of them and they are dumped in the sheep-wash pond, where they tend to make a nuisance of themselves by attacking other wildlife. An attempt was made to capture them and send them to a sanctuary in Spain, but obviously one managed to evade capture.
John Rogers, Mill Hill, London

Do Countryman readers know any of the short rhymes that were shouted out by child labourers bird scaring in the fields of late Victorian Britain? I’ve come across these examples, all from the east of England:

Coome yar off yon turnip tops
Coome yar off yon gaete, maete
For if yar doante, I’ll git me gu,
An’ then yar’ll be too laete, maete
(Lincolnshire)

Yellaway, yellaway
’Ware me great loud rattle
Fly away, fly away
And never more ye’ll settle
(Norfolk)

Car woo! Car woo!
Here come the clappers
To knock you down backwards
And holl’ car woo!
(Suffolk)

Can other counties claim similar verses in their local dialect?

Nigel Kirkman, Malesbury, Wilts

I am one of many alpaca/llama owners losing their alpacas to bovine TB.

I have formed a support group, and between eleven of us we have lost 103 camelids to bovine TB. I am only in contact with five of the herds currently under restriction to TB so the actual numbers could be staggering.

As we are not classed as livestock, we can refuse entry to DEFRA even though we have TB confirmed on our premises. We can refuse to cull even if tested positive.

The British Alpaca Society (BAS) are well aware of the problem but fails to inform its members of the severity of the situation. BAS do not even insist their members test when Animal Health has asked to do so.

I am the regional group welfare rep for the Cornwall Alpaca and Llama Group and I also have a herd infected by TB. I have lost four of my nineteen alpacas to TB, three of them in the space of six weeks.
DEFRA is keeping quiet as the skin test used for cattle is useless on camelids and we therefore keep having negative tests then watching our animals die in front of our eyes.

TB is highly contagious in alpacas — contagious to all animals, let’s not forget humans.

Does it take a newspaper headline ‘Child dies from TB after kissing an alpaca’ before BAS/DEFRA start to take this seriously?

Dianne Summers, summersdianne@yahoo.com,
(01209) 822 422 or 07949 511 316

In reply to Wendy Nicholls’ letter in the July issue about blackbirds nesting three times, I had not heard of this before until this year.

A pair of blackbirds nested for the third time in my garden. Twice the same nest in a laurel bush was used but this third time they built in ivy opposite my kitchen window, much easier for me to watch.

I wondered if this was due to the fact that I no longer have a cat. If another cat comes into my garden they make loud alarm calls, so I go out and shoo it away.
Miss L J Chenery, Luton

Robin Page (June) was quite correct in identifying the lowly status of the red squirrel at both government and non-government organisations.

Yet there may be a reason for this indifference when one considers that one of our major bird welfare organisations may be helping to spread squirrel pox by encouraging its members to feed garden birds and then birds carrying the virus to the remaining population areas of the red squirrel habitat. 
I visited one of the last red squirrel areas in England, only to find it was contaminated by squirrel pox.
However, a notice at the reserve entrance explained about ‘due diligence’ and cleaning/disinfecting of bird tables and feeders to prevent virus spread.

To me it looks like the rapid spread of the virus across the country has been helped by birds and garden feeding techniques. No wonder bird organisations are keeping a low profile in this particular environmental disaster.

We have been told that birds are the ‘early warning system for the environment’, whereas, to date, it seems that they appear to have played a part in the near-extinction of a native mammal and have failed to spot the demise of the humble but important honey bee. Some early warning system.
J Ellis, via e-mail

In August a friend, who lives in Llangilby, witnessed a fight between a grey heron and a buzzard, which was extremely noisy. As they disappeared from view, she was unable to see the outcome. Is this behaviour usual, and what could have been the reason for it?
Patricia Lumborg, Newport, South Wales

As a beekeeper of nearly forty years I was pleased to read in July’s issue of The Countryman an article on honey and beekeeping. It is also good to read about Shropshire Beekeepers’ arranging courses for potential new beekeepers, and giving hands-on experience to those students.

I would like, however, to draw attention to the photograph on page 61 of the hive being inspected. Look at the hive roof which is being held; there is a considerable amount of wild honeycomb attached to it. There is also comb on the crownboard (the cover of the honey super).

There are two reasons for this:
1) the feed hole in the crown board was not covered by a piece of bee-proof mesh;
2) the bees were not given enough room to store honey.

If the bees do not have enough room, and the hole in the crown board is left open, the bees will access the roof, build comb and store honey. This comb will be attached to both the roof and the crown board, making removal of the roof difficult. The crown board will also be stuck to the super with propolis (a form of resin glue which the bees collect).

The hive roof in the photograph is not too ‘filled up’, but in a worse case considerable rough handling would be necessary to part the roof from the hive, and this upsets the bees.

I hope this fault was pointed out to the beginners on the course, and it was explained that this is what happens if the bees are not given enough room.
Maurice West,Rugby, Warwicks

In the March issue there was a reference to Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia, of which I have many fond memories. I believe it was first published in 1908 but I remember it when I was about five or six in the early 1930s.

I used to stay with an aunt for the holidays and always made a beeline for the Children’s Encyclopaedia so that I could look at the pictures and the rhymes and verses, also read the stories, with a bit of help. Later on, we had our own copies at home, plus the invaluable Children’s Newspaper which was a hive of information.

When I grew up and married in the 1960s, we bought our own copy of the Encyclopaedia which I still use quite frequently for information on history, famous people, places, nature and trees, and all kinds of subjects. It seems to have the information I need which often I cannot find elsewhere.
MrsL M Hill, Bournemouth

In my teens, just after the Second World War, I moved to Eaton Constantine Rectory in Shropshire, when my father became the rector. It had about an acre (0.4 ha) of land and included an orchard with many old varieties of apples, greengages, plums and damsons.

I remember the Lady Saudley apple very well because it ripened very early and the codling apple because it made lovely apple sauce as good as that made by the present-day Bramley seedling.
I have inherited my love of the countryside from my father and, forty-six years ago, my husband Michael and I had a cedar bungalow built in the corner of a farmer’s pasture.

On a very old map we discovered that the field was called David’s Yard. That there was a dwelling there centuries ago, we deduced from the old apple, pear and Lammas plum trees which were there and by the many coins, pieces of pottery and remains of clay pipes I found wherever I dug.

I was determined to have an orchard on the half-acre plot. In a short time we were self-sufficient and even had enough to keep the birds through the winter. Granny Smiths kept in a frost-free shed in the garage until June.

The orchard was at the lower end of the garden and, after about twenty years, some of the trees started to look tired and some uprooted in the strong winds as their roots rotted. I was told that modern trees are short-lived.

Now there are only three left, Arthur Turner, a half-uprooted bramley and the greengage. When the first died, I started planting in other parts of the garden, at the back of borders and, nine years ago, in a large rose-bed in front of our sitting-room window. I planted these new trees both for the adorable blossom and for bird feeding.

The rose-bed now has red Windsor, Egremont russet, saturn, Bramley, red falstaff and queen cox, all on dwarf rooting stock; elsewhere are Ida Red, Beauty of Bath, royal gala, Lane’s Prince Albert, four dwarf Bramleys, monarch, red James Greave, Blenheim orange pippin, and sunset — all costing under £3; and Annie Elizabeth (grown from a pip), a Victoria plum and a Shropshire prune.

Towering above is a forty-year-old walnut (franquette), which began to fruit at the age of five.
Jancis Mander

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