Letters to the Editor - September 2009

In July’s Country Diary where Paul Jackson refers to the black swans, as a young boy I lived near Chartwell and my brother and I walked down the footpath adjacent to the garden. We could see the lake and my brother said there were two black swans on the lake. I said that Mr Churchill had painted them, as he was an artist, but thought there were no such things. And there was a chuckle from the other side of the hedge. You can guess who was listening. We were told that the swans were a gift from the Australian prime minister. This happened in 1937-8.

I always thought these were the first black swans in the country.
John Holmden, Bedfordshire

Regarding Robin Page’s August column on a heavy approach to a sensible Government ruling.

Slurry tanks are containers of toxic liquids. If these escape into a watercourse they can cause untold havoc to wildlife, and no ‘green’ farmer in his wildest moments would think of keeping one there. Unless of course a waterproof bund was constructed as has always been required at tank farms for diesel and oil storage.

The article was about a new ‘dairy’ which I must assume is his name for a cowshed, but then I read “the CRT needs a new dairy to take the storage of slurry away from the river”, then, ominously, “a move made necessary by Government regulations”.

The slurry tank can be located anywhere within reasonable pumping distance so all that is required is a sump to collect the liquids from the existing cowshed/dairy and a macerator/sludge pump to carry the liquid via a plastic pipe laid preferably in a shallow trench. Electricity is already on site for the milking machines.

But that wouldn’t have made such good anti-Government copy would it?
Jack Hill, St Albans

The picture of elderberries (June) reminded me of an orchard when we were children before the Second World War. The fruit was beautiful and our mother made elderberry jelly which everyone enjoyed. I don’t think the old tree survived the war; certainly I have never tasted elderberry jelly since then.

Sadly things have changed. Orchards are no more — one is lucky to have a couple of fruit trees in the garden.
Jean Arthur, St John, Jersey

The letter from Wendy Nicholls about the courting dunnocks made me want to jump up and say “yes!”

From my kitchen window I watched two dunnocks on the path, behaving like Wendy mentions, the female inviting attention and the male responding. Then he beamed very excitedly, hopping from side to side then they both, by mutual consent, scuttled under the nearby box hedge. Perhaps they felt safer to mate out of sight of predators.
Ann Parker, Ross-on-Wye

The mechanic who was unwilling to share his knowledge (‘More than one way to tighten a nut’ by Brian Ingram, June issue), reminded me of a tale told to me when I was a little boy.

A small carpenter’s workshop had an engine to drive its wood-turning lathe. One morning it could not be started. Finally the carpenter called over a mechanic who worked across the road. The mechanic looked at the engine for about a minute. Then he hit it with a hammer, whereupon the engine started straight away.

“That’ll be a guinea”, said the mechanic, a guinea of course being one pound and one shilling.

“A guinea?” shouted the carpenter, “You only walked across the road and hit it with a hammer.”

“That’s right,” agreed the mechanic, “that’s what the shilling is for — but it’s a pound for knowing where to hit it.”
Barry Jasper, Ludlow

I’m not sure whether I was meant to laugh quite as much as I did after reading Jim Smith’s article in July’s issue of The Countryman, ‘Drunk Hens at Fort William’, but I loved the images this story brought to mind. When I had stopped chuckling, these lines of verse began to form. I hope they might give you a smile.

Hiccups
A singularly plastered hen
Is something well beyond our ken,
Yet near the Laggan Burn we’re told,
This drama was known to unfold.
Poultry who supped from yonder stream
Were rendered legless, it would seem,
By drinking water deftly laced
With hard stuff suitably misplaced.
Poor supine birds recumbent lay,
Proof of their constant disarray,
Occasioned by unwitting sips
Of liquor meant for human lips.
Yon poultry farmer, if astute,
Might have made unexpected loot,
By seeking out a loaded agent
To sign his birds for entertainment.
Joan Howes, Basingstoke

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Countryman, The Water Mill, Broughton Hall, Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 3AG
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