Hawks From Handsaws

Countryside Column for 8 November 2013

Telling Hawks From Handsaws or Pigeons

A kestrel died on my doorstep the other day. I thought it was a pigeon (I am, self evidently, not much of an ornithologist), and I couldn’t work out what it was doing there. At first I blamed the dog. She’d been acting oddly ever since the clotheshorse collapsed on her in front of the Aga the previous day. She clearly thought it was her fault and that I was cross: she ran upstairs with her tail between her legs and stayed there all night, which is extremely unusual. Anyway I couldn’t really leave it – the pigeon/hawk that is - to decompose just where visitors would have to step over it. So out came the rubber gloves (am I alone in being a bit squeamish about picking up dead animals with bare hands?) and I scooped up the corpse. 

Now, however pathetic I am at identifying bird species, even I realised what I was holding was probably not a dead pigeon. To start with, it had wonderful brown feathers with black squares or diamonds on its back, long tail feathers and yellow legs with talons. But the real giveaway seemed to be a small but sharply hooked beak. A quick internet search confirmed it was, or had been, a common kestrel.

It was in almost perfect condition. No rigor mortis or sign of any wound. But its head lolled around, so I could only conclude it had a broken neck. It was all rather sad. I love watching hawks hovering or gliding round and round on the thermal currents. We’ve had a family of buzzards living next to the orchard recently, soaring and circling majestically over the trees and mewing like cats. 

But is a kestrel actually a hawk? What would we do without Google? The answer is, technically, no. A kestrel is a falcon which is a different genus, though both are classed at raptors along with eagles and owls and even vultures. The main difference is that falcons tend to catch their prey in flight, while the others dive bomb them on the ground. Except vultures who, being lazy birds, wait for them to die first. 

What I also discovered is that kestrels can get up to amazing speeds in order to overtake their prey. If mine hit the door at his top velocity of 200 mph, it’s no wonder he broke his neck.

Dancing with Dylan

Countryside Column for 1st November

Dancing with Dylan 

It’s 7.30 on a Sunday evening and the joint is rocking. They’re only a two-piece band but the rhythms from the Ghanaian percussionist get right under the skin, and the guitarist is putting heart and soul into Lou Reed and even Eminem covers. Dylan is dancing down at the front. With his mother. And his grandmother. And just about every other customer in the pub. And, once again, I give thanks that our little village has such an enterprising landlord, prepared to give his main bar over to excellent music every month. 

On other nights you’ll find the Rotary Club there, or a darts match, or a group discussing books or media matters. It means that just about everyone feels they have a personal connection with their local, and so go out of their way to choose it over rival hostelries. 

Not all publicans have that magic touch though. The second village pub, once the only place to go, now languishes.  And many other country pubs are closing -nationally the figure is around 25 a week. In this area a few have managed to buck the trend. The old Bull in Sissinghurst has just reopened, if under a silly new name, while the Queens in Hawkhurst will soon be back following major renovations. 

Restaurateur Marco Pierre White recently argued that pubs could only save themselves by providing truly “excellent” food. For which I read truly “expensive”. In the same article, a local was quoted as saying he’d much prefer simple pub grub to posh nosh: “I couldn’t pronounce half the things on Marco's menu let alone eat them,” he told the Telegraph. 

I have some sympathy with that view. I know it’s costly employing a chef, but I can seldom afford up to £20 for a main course.  Whatever happened to old-fashioned bangers and mash, or liver and onions, or fish and chips that didn’t describe itself as local line-caught, sustainably sourced, white fish, cooked in a handmade beer batter, served with chunky potato wedges? 

And don’t get me started on the outrageous mark up on wine in most pubs. A hundred percent is just acceptable. But three or four times that is simply fleecing the customer. Which, along with an overly expensive menu, will surely just serve to keep people at home and contribute to the slow decline of the village pub.

Wandle Mill in all its glory

The Mill awaiting restoration!

The Boon of Mills

Countryside Column for 25 October

The Boon of Mills

One of of the joys of living in the country is surveying the various historic agricultural and industrial buildings scattered about:  a crook barn here, an oast house there and, of course, the many mills.

I’m lucky to live opposite a magnificent Georgian watermill.  It’s a local landmark, now converted into flats.  But for a long while it was touch and go whether it would survive.  

It ceased work around 1930 when my grandfather bought it for a store. I remember playing in it as a child, gingerly avoiding the wheels and cogs and pulleys and open chutes. Then thieves stole the lead from the valley roof, rain rotted the floors and joists and the building slowly became derelict. Many schemes were mooted to save it but the cost appeared prohibitive.  Finally my father found someone who sunk a huge amount of money into a restoration project.  I remember the excitement, as it neared completion, of seeing lights switched on for the first time in living memory.

Other mills nearby have also been narrowly saved from destruction.

One of the most poignant tales is the Rolvenden windmill. It was lovingly restored by the parents of an 18 year old boy killed in a road accident in 1955, and stands still as a memorial to him.

Recently I found a local windmill I’d never seen before. It’s a huge five-sailed affair dominating the ridge across the valley in Sandhurst. But how could I have missed it?  The reason is that the main wooden part, the “smock”, was demolished in 1945, leaving just the low brick base.  Then, a few years ago, they constructed a replica, based on original photographs.

Finding an excellent book entitled ‘The Mills of Man” by George Long has sparked my interest.  My copy itself has an eventful history. Published in 1931 and acquired by Swinton and Pendlebury Public libraries, it did not prove popular. No borrowings are recorded before it was discarded two years later.  Next the Shoreditch Training College Library owned it. Possibly when the college moved from Hoxton to Englefield Green in Surrey in 1951, it was offered for sale at £2.00. Which, I assume, is when my father bought it.  But it’s a wonderful read, full of the romance of mills and dire warnings of their imminent demise.  And that was eighty years ago.