High Hopes for Home Hopping

Countryside Column for 12 December

Here’s Hoping Home Hopping Isn’t Mad

I got a call to say my hop plants have arrived. I ordered them a few weeks ago and still don’t know what variety they are. Apparently there are more than 20 different strains available. I rather fancy Boadicea. The name has a pleasing ancient Briton ring. Sadly, though, they turn out to be an aphid resistant hybrid produced by Wye College just 10 years ago.

Round here I think Fuggles were more traditional. They were released in 1875 by Mr Richard Fuggle of Brenchley from a seedling selected a few years earlier from a strain found growing wild.

In my youth a Fuggles Garage dominated the centre of the village. Now a group of houses stands where our ancient Hillman was serviced. There’s still a Fuggles undertaking in a town nearby, though they are funeral directors so I have no idea if there’s any connection to the hop.

Which is a little tangential to my tale. The thing is I like hop bines. They smell lovely and look decorative over the inglenook. But they need replacing every year or two and, skinflint that I am, I resent paying £10 a throw. Plus I had a couple of hop poles over from a summer project and so thought a bit of GYO (grow your own) might be in order.

It may well be that, within a few years, the only hops left in England will be grown in back yards. In 1870 there were 77,000 acres under cultivation.  Today it’s a mere 2,400.  There are still a few isolated hop gardens round here but a large one nearby was recently grubbed up and replanted with vines.

I’ve often wondered at the economics of the industry. Within half a mile of me there are at least five Oast houses - big brick affairs which would have cost a packet to build. But it was calculated that one acre of hops could make as much as 50 acres of arable farming so the profits must have been substantial.

 And it all came about because of a dramatic change in taste in the 17^th century. Before that the English had drunk ale - a brew made without hops. But then they acquired the taste for the type of bitter beer brewed in Germany and the Low Counties. 

No, I wasn’t planning to take up home brewing. Though I suppose if my bines do particularly well…

Vigilantes? Not in My Village

Countryside column for 5 December

Village Vigilantes with Pitchforks or Speed Cameras?

A storm is brewing between our County Councillor and the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner, Ann Barnes. “Thank you for your letter declining to meet local representatives about the vexed question of speeding through our rural areas,” Cllr Sean Holden wrote to her. “I am writing in the hope that, as the people's Police Commissioner, you might review that position to allow those who speak for the people the chance to come and present their case.”

The ‘case’ concerns the difference between Community Speedwatch equipment and the SL700 laser speed meter used by police to catch speeding motorists.

Our Parish Council recently contributed a few hundred pounds towards a Speedwatch monitor and display. Volunteers set it up by the roadside in the village and note cars doing above 30mph. If a particular vehicle exceeds the limit by more than 10% on several occasions, they can report it to the police who can write to the registered owner to point this out. But drivers cannot be prosecuted on evidence from it.

The SL700 provides accurate enough data for use in court. But currently only the police are allowed to operate it. Cllr Holden wants its use extended to village volunteers because, as he told Mrs Barnes, “There is a strong sense among those people that Kent Police have all but abandoned enforcing the law on speeding.”  

She, however, supports her senior officers’ arguments that: “the SL700 is considered too ‘confrontational’ and ‘potentially aggressive’ for use by civilians and could provoke unwanted hostile responses from passing motorists.”

It’s an interesting debate. Speeding through our villages and down our lanes is a major source of aggravation and danger. We are campaigning for a 40mph limit throughout the parish, but KCC seems wholly unresponsive. It’s true you never see police ‘radar traps’ any more, and there are none of the remote speed cameras that are so effective in towns. Thus the ‘citizen volunteer’ model has some superficial attraction.

But, as a logical conclusion, if ordinary people take over one area of police work, how long before village vigilantes are marching with pitchforks and flaming torches on homes of suspected miscreants or child molesters? I exaggerate for effect, but the point is real. We have established a police force to uphold the law on our behalf.  Perhaps we should make sure they have the resources to do it before handing responsibility to the ‘people’.

Turner-ing in his Grave

(from The Hasings Independent) 

Turner Turning in his Grave at Open Captioning?

By Kent Barker

It seems that almost everyone in Hastings is involved in the arts. In our small crescent there’s a musician, at least two painters, a weaver, a photographer and a book designer  - and he has a fine art degree.  Hardly a week goers by without a private view or gallery opening. One evening we walked from an excellent new photographic exhibition to a cavernous gallery at the back of a pub, exhibiting half a dozen terrific local artists.

Which is why it was so surprising that the new film Mr Turner wasn’t showing anywhere in Hastings.  You’d have thought that they might have calculated a film about probably our greatest Victorian painter would have attracted a sizable local audience.  But no.  We had to traipse all the way to Eastbourne and do battle with the Labyrinthine roundabout system to see it.

To understand what I am about to tell, you have to realise the sheer sumptuousness of the cinematography.  Every scene was like a painting itself, beautifully composed with ravishing colours aping Turner’s own palate. One shot started close on a mountainside and pulled slowly down.  I was convinced it would reveal itself to be one of the artist’s works. But, no, it was a landscape the film was depicting, into which walked Timothy Spall as the grunting porcine painter.

In short it demanded to be watched as surely director Mike Lee intended, without distraction.  Yet, at our showing, almost every frame was overlaid with subtitles.  And not just dialogue, but everything on the soundtrack. Thus “Bells ring in the background. Indistinct conversation in Dutch” would pop up even if no one was actually speaking.

Now, I bow to no one in my respect for, and wish to assist, anyone with a disability.  Being deaf must be a dreadful burden.  And I can see why a cinema might want to hold showings with open captions.  But it did strike me that anyone at that main evening showing who was NOT deaf had the film all but ruined for them.  I wonder if the cinema had actually surveyed its audience to find out what the demand for this service was? And then asked whether a captioned showing at a different time of day or a hearing loop system would not serve equally well? I’ve written to ask the chain but, so far, without response. I shudder to think what Mr Turner would have thought. 

A Dusty Undertaking

Countryside Column for 21 November

Ashes to Ashes; Dust to the Wind

Myrtle and I were walking on West Hill in Hastings the other day.  Or at least I was. She was running hither and thither, chasing balls and looking warily at other canines. I’d been gazing at the stunning view of the Old Town down below and the fishing-boat littered Stade when I became aware of a commotion on the slope behind. A group had gathered and smoke seemed to be billowing from within their circle. It seemed an odd place to burn stuff and unlikely to be a flare or firework. Then it hit me.  It wasn’t smoke at all. It was ashes being spread to the wind.

I wondered whose remains they were. How often had he or she tramped this very hill and spied the pounding shore below? What life had they lived? What death had they made? I nearly went over and asked. But I thought it might be intrusive. I envied them though for some part, even if only a memory, would forever remain on West Hill.

It’s curious this ashes scattering thing. A friend from my village recently took his mother’s out on a launch in Bosham harbour, complete with the Commodore and other dignitaries from the local yacht club. Apparent she’d often sailed there in her younger days.

And a year or so back the wife of an old and dear friend from California brought his ashes over to Europe on a plane and divided them up. Some were spread around the lake next to my house, mingling, in spirit at least, with my father’s from a decade or so before. Then we boarded the Eurostar with the remainder and travelled down to Taizé in Burgundy. After contracting brain cancer, Chris had found solace in the international religious community there. So a little outdoor service was held in the grounds with one of the Brothers officiating. 

Both friends recognised that the procedure was more for their sake than for the deceased’s.  And I suppose that must be the thing with memorial benches too.  When I’m gone I don’t expect I’ll be too concerned about whether my name is carved on a backrest or my ashes cast to the wind.

But now, after Myrtle has tired me out in the orchard or up on the West Hill, I like to sit on such a bench, and wonder on whose life I’ve imposed myself.

NIMAONB (Not In My Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty)

Countryside Column for 28 November 2014

Sleepwalking to climate change disaster?

Well, I can’t deny it was a disappointment. I’ve long been deeply concerned about the effect of burning fossil fuels on our climate. Thus I’m a firm supporter of producing cleaner, renewable energy.

            So when a planning application for four rows of solar panels came before the parish council, I was enthusiastic.

            The key issue is that they would be sited in an area of outstanding natural beauty. But, as the AONB covers virtually the whole of our parish, any application is likely to fall in that category. 

The question was who would be able to see them?  The answer was almost nobody. The site is about a quarter of an acre on farmland well away from a road or homes. In fact they would be hidden behind 17 extremely ugly mobile homes that are used for seasonal workers on the fruit farm. They would have covered less than 800 square metres of ground hidden between two existing apple orchards.

There was one public footpath through Hemsted Forest from which they might have been visible, but the applicant proposed planting a hedge along that boundary which would have obscured them.

The benefits would have been considerable. Industry figures suggest PV solar generated electricity is at least ten times cleaner than gas and twenty times cleaner than coal fired generation. This proposed array could have cut the farm’s CO2 emissions by half—18-25 tonnes a year. It would also have saved money which, since the farm employs the equivalent of 90 full-time workers, is not insignificant.

But the parish council turned the application down. By one vote. It was extremely disheartening. Just the idea of solar panels despoiling the countryside was evidently enough to sway the opponents. Despite the fact that you can get permission to put them on your roof which, in my view, looks a great deal uglier.  And despite the fact that farmers are allowed to cover acres of fields in polytunnels which, in my view, look a great deal uglier too.

I know there is no ABSOLUTE proof that CO2 emissions are causing climate change. But the evidence is extremely strong. We can see ice caps melting.  We can see weather patterns changing. Last winter was unseasonably mild and unbelievably wet. Yet we seem unbelievably reluctant to do what little we can to reverse it. Will there be any outstanding natural beauty left to preserve unless we act now?

Unpopular Stances

Countryside Column for 14 November 2014

All Things to All Villagers

The agreement for the lease of the land has been signed and building work is due to start in the Spring. Six new ‘affordable’ homes will emerge on a greenfield site at the edge of the village. Although they will largely be reserved for people with close local ties, I’m sure there will still be some people hereabouts who fundamentally oppose the scheme. There certainly were when the Parish Council held a public meeting to discuss it almost two years ago. I remember being shocked at the vehemence of the opposition.

It’s one of the dilemmas for local politicians.  You can’t please all of the people all of the time. 

And it’s arguably worse for parish councillors. We don’t stand under a political banner and we feel it’s our duty to try to represent everyone in the parish. But how on earth to do that when opinions are sharply divided?

I only joined the council as a result of such a division when half the former members resigned over a suitable site for a new primary school.

The fresh council wanted to heal the rifts but immediately faced the new row over the affordable housing on land we controlled.

I was aware that my stance in favour of the homes would make me unpopular with the objectors. This was extremely regrettable, but I felt I had to stand by what I believed. I could not be ‘all things to all men’.  If I were completely out of kilter with local opinion they could kick me out at the next local elections.

Then a letter from another resident was circulated to the council. It expressed concern about the activities of protestors and, in particular, a petition they had got up. The author said they did not in any way represent the feelings of everybody in the local community. And it made a powerful case for affordable housing being the “very best use that can be made of that land”.

It was extremely heartening. But, sadly, the letter was anonymous. The author explained they had lived in the village for a very long time and knew how words could come back to haunt you.

How awful, I thought, that someone should feel so intimidated over a local housing issue. But I predict that, once the houses are up and new neighbours have moved in, the initial opposition will soon fade. 

Breaking (National) Trust

Countryside Column for 7 November

Stealing the castle common

Open letter to Simon Jenkins, National Trust Chairman.

Dear Simon,

As head of an organisation as large as the National Trust, you may not be aware of the hugely retrograde and regrettable change of policy recently introduced at Bodiam Castle in East Sussex.

For more than half a century I have visited the castle and walked its undulating grounds gazing at the “archetypal 14th century moated castle with ruined interior - a glimpse of medieval splendour” as your publicity describes it.

I have brought countless visitors, domestic and foreign, to enjoy the surroundings and the visit to the grounds has always been free. Often they have chosen to pay for admission to the castle keep itself and cross the drawbridge marvelling at the huge carp in the moat.

No more though. Now they must each cough up a whopping £7.95 (plus £3 car parking charge) just to enter the grounds. No longer on a summer’s day can they wander, picnic, play Frisbee or feed the ducks for free.

I know admission to the keep is included in the price. But it’s cold comfort. There is precious little to do among the ruins except climb vertiginous stairs up two of the towers. 

Neither of your neighbouring properties, Sissinghurst or Scotney castles, charges for admission to their grounds. Why Bodiam?

The National Trust is a custodian of large chunks of Britain’s heritage. Of course you need sufficient income to continue your work, but I have always paid my membership on the basis the Trust exists to make those parts of the countryside you control accessible to ALL. What next? Will you fence off and charge admission to the 750 miles of our coastline that you own?

I predict you will witness a dramatic decrease in visitors to Bodiam. And that means revenue will be down in the café and the shop. You are also incurring the ire of local people who have enjoyed walking the grounds for so many years.

And please don’t say, ah but there is a public footpath through past the castle, you can still use that. All your signage strongly suggests payment is mandatory.

As an historian you will recall the old rhyme:

“The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose”

Please reverse this decision now!

Sincerely

Kent

Just a Load of Rubbish

Countryside Column for 31 October

Refuse the refuse cuts please

It’s a scene out of one of those chaotic Breugel paintings. Village folk scurry hither and thither; women throw things from doors and windows; men pull rudimentary carts up and down lanes. Yes, the civic amenity vehicle has arrived for its fortnightly visit.

            Among the more interesting items at our parish council meetings are reports from our borough councillors on what’s going on at the town hall in Tunbridge Wells. This month the spotlight was on this amenity vehicle-- otherwise known as the refuse lorry.

            Now for people who live close to a recycling centre this may be of little import. But for me it’s a 40 mile round trip to dispose of things declined by the kerbside collection.

            We used to have a dump much closer. But some years ago the council closed it and sold off the land. As compensation for the loss of the facility, they promised us a peripatetic refuse truck. Every other Saturday it visits my village, alternating with others nearby.

            And very popular it is too. Often cars and trailers queue down the road waiting to disgorge garbage, garden waste and the surplus contents of long neglected sheds. The driver is extremely accommodating and helps to tip almost anything into the cavernous interior of his compactor. There’s even a totter’s truck alongside which takes your scrap metal.

            The problem is that the town hall bean counters have proposed saving £32,000 a year by withdrawing the service. This has led to local consternation and much lobbying of rural council members.

            One pointed that out that fly tipping would certainly increase - which already costs the council a tidy sum to clear. And, at the same meeting when they proposed saving our £32,000, the group voted to spend £1.5 million on new seats for the Assembly Hall, even though it’s planned to replace the whole building shortly.

            However, the issue for anyone of an ecological bent, is that the entire contents of the fortnightly refuse lorry goes straight to landfill. So old paint tins, noxious leeching chemicals, methane-making foliage, and a sea of plastics will remain buried just below the surface of Kentish fields for generations.

            The answer: a proper collection service that separates refuse at source and then recycles it. Trouble is, it would require more lorries, or new ones with separate compartments.  And that means spending more money. Somehow I can’t quite see that happening!

Privately funded state education?

Countryside Column for Friday 24^th October

Schoolchildren starved of tax-cake

Finally.  Finally the last stage of planning permission for the village’s new primary school has been passed.  Now nothing stands in the way of building work.  Before long children will leave their old, inadequate and appallingly overcrowded premises for the wonderful, modern building on the edge of the village.

Well, the first third of that statement is true.  The rest, sadly, is pure wishful thinking.  The process has been going on so long – nearly fourteen years – that a recession, unwise council investments, and swinging central government cuts mean there is no money to build the desperately needed school.  True, there is some special funding the council can bid for, but we’re competing against urban areas which have serious levels of deprivation.

So muted discussions can be heard round the village wondering if, perhaps, some money might be raised locally to finance all or part of the school.  And here’s the dilemma. I am the first to want to see it built.  I originally stood for the Parish Council because I felt others were obstructing progress.  But should we really have to raise the money ourselves for PUBLIC education? 

We are not a poor village.  That’s to say there are some very well-heeled people about, living in pretty decent houses, driving far from shabby cars. (Though as so often in the countryside that disguises a layer of rural poverty that is not so readily apparent.)  But the point is, that if push came to shove, the village might just raise part of the £4 million needed. 

But wouldn’t that be the start of a slippery slope?  Next time a new local school is wanted, county hall or Westminster would simply say, well let them pay for it themselves.  And that might be in localities where there wasn’t so much money around, or even to areas where there was none at all.

Look what’s happened in higher education.  People are now expected to pay for Uni themselves regardless of their means.

We pay our taxes, and out of them we expect government to finance, crucially, education, health and welfare, with transport, law and order and national security coming close behind.

Isn’t it obvious, though, that the tax revenue cake just isn’t big enough to be divided into sufficient pieces.  But will you hear any party advocating raising taxes come the general election?  I don’t think so.  Which is bad news for our primary pupils.

Uncle Bob a bit pissed?

Countryside Column for 17 October.

Bob is still your uncle for real cider.

In my youth the cider lorry, piled high with wooden barrels, was a common sight round here. On the backboard was painted the legend: “Bob’s Your Uncle”. And Bob Luck Cider was itself legendry – certainly the potent vintage variety needed to be drunk by the thimbleful to avoid instant inebriation.

I visited his farm to collect a barrel of ‘ordinary’ for my 18^th birthday party. It was beautifully bucolic, buried away down meandering lanes. Bob himself was apple-round with a face suggesting he’d sampled too much of his own product over the years. I strapped the barrel on the back of my motorcycle and still remember the hazardous drive home round sharp bends. 

In those days real cider drinking was commonplace, possibly because gassy keg beer was all you could get in most pubs. The Campaign for Real Ale altered all that but, with the revival of cask-conditioned beer, somewhere along the way traditional cider making got left behind. People such as Bob Luck retired or went out of business and ironically what was left were gassy bottled ciders

Now, though, CAMRA is busy promoting real cider and have listed almost two thousand pubs that sell it.  They are also making a documentary about the production process and sent a film crew along to our community orchard apple day the other week. 

This cider revival has been a boon and a blessing to orchards like ours. We are by no means sure what varieties of apples we have, but cider makers like a blend. Picking from ladders up our old tall trees is a time-consuming business (and something of a safety hazard). So, shaking branches and collecting the fruit from the ground is a good deal easier and the occasional bruise no bar if an apple is to go in the press. (Bruises to pickers from apples falling from trees remain a minor danger though!)

It’s surprising just how many local cider-makers are about but, as always, our main problem is transporting the apples to the press. Now, though, a maker with the wonderfully redolent name of Rough Old Wife actually collects them from us – and the proprietor even came along to offer some of last year’s cider for our Apple Day.

It was quite delicious and the taste memory whisked me back across the decades to that birthday party and Bob Luck’s late-lamented beverage.

Cut off in my pr...

Countryside Column for 10 October

Hedge cutting cuts all communication

Regular readers of this column know I am ever calm in the face of adversity.  Seldom do I sound off over life’s little irritations. Equanimity is my watchword.  But this really is just too much to bear.

Deep in the country we struggle to achieve a level of communications that townsfolk take for granted.  There is, for instance, effectively no mobile signal where I live.  On any network. So I have a thing called a Femtocell.  This routes my mobile phone through my Broadband and provides a reasonable level of service as long as you are in the same room as the device. And as long as you have working Broadband.

I am about a mile and a half from the telephone exchange.  Old copper phone cables carry my Broadband down the lane on telegraph poles.  When it works it’s vaguely OK. But it often doesn’t work and it takes an inordinate time to fix.

Take last week when a farmer sliced through the phone cable with a hedge cutter – taking out the service to all in the valley.  Suddenly I have no phone, no internet, and virtually no mobile coverage. Eventually I find a spot in the garden where I can call the service provider. Sorry, says the recorded message, there’s a fault at the exchange.  Our engineers should have it restored within 96 hours. But that’s possibly four days incommunicado!

Two days pass.  Still no service. But an engineer’s van appears up the road. The nice man explains the problems of having to rejoin a hundred tiny severed cables.  But, ominously, says there’s no jobsheet for my address so the service wont be restored even when the cable’s reconnected. I have to report the fault. But I can’t report the fault as I have no phone and no mobile service.  I can use a public phonebox.  A What?! Oh, yes, one of those red things we used to have in the village.

Eventually I find a spot in the garden where the mobile works for long enough to complete the 20 minute wait (at 14p a minute) to get through to report the fault.  The nice lady with the Indian accent tells me it could take another 96 hours for the phone-line to be fixed!!!  And in the meantime I might experience some reduction in my broadband speed.  “Reduction,” I scream down the iPhone: “What *±@£$%^&* broadband?!!”

Not mush-room inside

Countryside column for 3^rd October

Autumn foraging can cut food bills

A friend of mine rather surprised the dinner table by discussing squirrels. Well, not just squirrels per se, but eating them.  And not just how to eat them, but the fact that the last one he’d tried had been rather tough.

As I dare say we were revelling in some really riveting subject such as the Great British Bakeoff at the time, his interjection went almost unnoticed. I think I may have made some comment such as “what do you expect if you choose to chomph on little Squirrel Nutkin?” or I might have paraphrased Malcolm Bradbury’s novel and said, sotto voce, “eating squirrels is wrong”.

It’s a difficult one isn’t it? You don’t want to offend him. Just because I don’t fancy squirrel, there really is not a great deal of reason why he shouldn’t consider it a delicacy. The Romans apparently just loved a roast dormouse – though I’d have thought there would be more fur than meat on the little critters. In some parts locusts are highly prized though I doubt if I’ll acquire the taste.

What I didn’t ask my dinner table companion was where he’d got his squirrel from. Catching one could be quite tricky.  Certainly Myrtle – who’s rather better adapted for the purpose – can only chase them to the foot of a tree and stand there barking while they make good their escape. 

Perhaps it was roadkill. This seems to me to be a particularly gruesome way of sourcing your protein. I know butchers are expensive but, even so, making do with the leavings of crows and other scavengers does strike me as a bit desperate. And gutting and cleaning the corpse would put me off food for the rest of the day.

Foraging, though, seems to be the new middle-class activity. This time of year no self-respecting cook round here would actually BUY apples or blackberries.  And one narrow lane I know borders a garden with a prolific vine. Picking grapes that overhang the footpath is one thing, but some people’s long-arm tactics of hooking bunches from deep inside the owner’s land seems a bit cheeky.

Personally I’ve stopped collecting wild mushrooms since that really bad tummy-ache of a couple of years back, but many friends still do. Often, though, they end up on the compost once photos have failed to distinguish them from the really poisonous varieties. Oh dear, back to the supermarket.

Busting for a service

Countryside Column for 26 September

Cut the Surveys not the buses!

Are you one of the 22%?

Or, put another way, the one in five people round here that doesn’t have access to a car?

If you are, you may well have noticed that bus services are under threat as councils seek deeper and deeper cuts.

In East Sussex they are planning to slash 75% of their spending on buses.

This would include severe reductions in the frequency of services and abolishing altogether the Sunday route from Tunbridge Wells to Hastings and, more relevant to my family, Hawkhurst to Hastings.  This they justify by saying: “Many people have a choice of transport options - including car, motorbike/moped, taxi or train as well as more active modes such as cycling and walking.”

That may be true.  MANY people might. But as discussed the one in five carless don’t, and I hardly think walking or taking a taxi over those distances is much of an option.

But then as as the Council says: “Almost 100,000 residents of East Sussex live in villages or more rural areas, and almost 60,000 of these currently have no access by bus to a key centre at off peak times.”

So that’s OK then!  But they follow this up with the utterly astounding conclusion that:  “It could not reasonably be said that there was a strong ‘need’ for a bus service in these villages and hamlets”.  So, a service doesn’t exist and you conclude that there is no strong need for it!  Quite extraordinary.

Anyway, surely we should be promoting public transport and dissuading cars from clogging up the roads and polluting the atmosphere?  And if that means publically financing it from taxes, so be it.

But actually a large part of my concern is reserved for the last page of East Sussex County Council’s consultation survey.  Having asked me for my views on the cuts they then seek a raft of personal details. For example:  “Do you identify as a transgender or trans person?  Are you: “Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Other?”   Sorry, but what possible relevance could this have to my views on bus services?  And it gets worse: “Have you been pregnant in the past year? (No, actually.)  Are you married or in a civil partnership? Are you Bi/Bisexual? (is there a difference?) Gay woman/Lesbian?

Come on. This is utterly intrusive and utterly irrelevant. Slash the questionnaires and restore our bus services.

Cynically deprived of my vote?

Countryside Column for 19 September

Electoral Reform Means Democratic Deficit

It’s absolutely ludicrous. In the words of the late Victor Meldrew, I DON’T BELIEVE IT!

(Speaking of whom, not long ago I was giving a talk to the Women’s Institute in the Hampshire village of Shawford  and was directed to turn right “just after the pub where Richard Wilson was run over”. Good heavens, I exclaimed, I had no idea he was dead. Such a lovely actor.  No, not the actor, the secretary replied, his character Victor Meldrew!  A month or so later I was sitting opposite Richard Wilson in a Soho production office and was just about to pluck up courage to regale him with the story when a runner came and whisked him away.)

Anyway I am sure that both Mr Wilson and Mr Meldrew would be equally incandescent about this latest pettifogging bureaucratic idiocy. I take my right to vote seriously. I may seldom get the government or council I want, but the process is vitally important. So I always update my entry on the electoral register right away. Thus, when the form arrived last week, I lost no time in doing it online. Only to get a letter back from the Electoral Services Office at TWBC telling me to provide documentary evidence to prove my identity.

Well, really! I’ve been on the register at this address for 20 years or more. I pay council tax on the house at this address. My election as a parish councillor is based on my identity at this address. What more could they possibly need?  The answer, apparently, is one document from table 1, plus two documents from table 2 or, alternatively, four documents from table 4. (Table 2 incidentally includes a firearms licence or a police bail sheet – giving rise to all sorts of fantasy scenarios.)

Look, OK, the Electoral Registration and Administration Act (2013) brought in the changes and I’m as opposed to electoral fraud as anyone. But surely we should be making it EASIER for people to register not harder. And, if they are putting these sort of barriers in the way of someone as settled as me, I dread to think how difficult it will be for people with a less conventional lifestyle.

This needs an urgent rethink, Mr Cameron. Oh, but wait a moment, could it be that your party might actually benefit if fewer such people can vote? Or is that just too cynical?

Sniffing Friendship

Countryside Column for 12 September

Hail fellow well met.

            Dogs are famous for it. They hardly ever see a fellow canine without proffering a personal greeting (though let’s draw a discrete veil over just how they do it).

People, however, seldom acknowledge the presence of another of their species even when passing closely in the street. (Thank heavens, you may say, if they were expected to ape the doggy way of doing it!).

            But I think it’s a pity.  I’ve just returned from a summer sojourn in a little French village in the Languedoc. There it is absolutely de rigueur to say ‘bonjour’ to any and every person you pass.  Instead of deliberately avoiding eye contact, you look up, smile and, with a slight nod of the head, give your salutation.

            The very act of doing so makes you feel good and gives the recipient a reciprocal glow. 

There are some potential pitfalls.  At around six in the evening you might be thinking that “bonsoir” would be more appropriate than ‘bonjour’.  And it might be.  Or it might not.  There really is no way of telling.  If you say good-evening, their reply will almost invariably be good-day.  If you say good-day, they will probably say good-evening.  I was given a rule of thumb that if it is the end of a working day then ‘soir’ would be appropriate.  So you go into the baker’s late on to buy a baguette and you wish him ‘bonjour’ because he’s still working.  But if you are delayed and find him just locking up the shop, then ‘bonsoir’ would be right as he’s finished work. (Though you might say it through gritted teeth because you’d be breadless for supper.)  But even this rule is not immutable.

Anyway I was put in mind of this while walking Myrtle up on the West Hill in Hastings. Dog owners happily greet each other and chat about the weather or their respective hounds. But pass someone without a dog and eye contact is avoided, making a greeting not just difficult but positively inappropriate.   In my Kentish village it’s almost the same.  You can greet someone you know, however vaguely, but not a stranger.  Walking country lanes or footpaths is better, and saying ‘hi’ seems almost always acceptable.

My recipe for a friendlier life is to drop our reserve and greet everyone warmly whenever we encounter them.  Go on.  Try it for a week and see how it feels!

I Say Allo

Countryside column for 5^th September

Goodbye Allo, Allo?

The ‘Allo, Allo’ is back. Or at least it reappeared briefly last week after a long absence.

When I first came to this village in the Languedoc, the main method of communicating local events was via an extensive public address system. Two or three times a day, the quiet would be broken by an electronic buzz and a moment’s ear-splitting feedback before the announcer lady began with the loud ‘Allo, Allo’ greeting which reverberated round the sets of speakers positioned on different buildings or lamp-posts.

            Compared with the reserve of my village at home in Kent, the French seem unperturbed by such noise. The bell on the church clock, for instance, has the habit of sounding twice. So at twelve o’clock you get a dozen chimes followed, two minutes later, by another set of twelve. The theory is that vignerons working in the surrounding fields might miss the first one or two bells but, being alerted, would start counting the second time around and so be sure to get home in time for dinner. (Though possibly this might be more useful at midday than midnight). The fact that everyone now has wristwatches and mobile phones to tell the time does not seem to have impinged on this rural tradition.

            In the neighbouring village of Coulobres, which has no shops, a van selling bread and onions announces its presence by sounding its horn loudly and repeatedly as it drives round the streets. This is annoying enough if you are walking the dog a kilometre or so away; what it must be like every day right outside your front window I shudder to imagine.

            Anyway to return to the ‘Allo, Allos’. Their efficacy has been a matter of some debate. On the one hand the sound quality of the broadcast is so poor, and the regional accent so thick, that it’s pretty nigh impossible to make out what’s being said. On the other hand if you could hear and understand the message you might, indeed, be pleased to know that the horse-meat van has just arrived in the square, or that the mayor is holding a séance that evening. (No, not that sort of séance, just a political meeting!).

Since my parish council is always seeking ways to improve communication I might suggest adopting the quaint French idea when I get home. I’m not sure I’ll get many backers though.

Hastings Independent Column

 This is the first in a series of  fortnightly columns for the Hastings Independent. Some will be based on those in the Courier.

Pulling up the Drawbridge

By Kent Barker

There are not, I concede, many reasons to leave Hastings. Pretty much all life is here.  And the town has an added aura summed up by a small piece of graffiti on a George Street hoarding: “Keep Hastings Weird”.  What made it more real was that it was a near illiterate scrawl in marker pen with no concessions whatever to the elegant street art of sprayed 3D letters or Banksy type stencils.

Anyway, should you happen to venture beyond the town boundaries you will doubtless discover the rural villages and hamlets of Kent and Sussex, one of which I inhabit.  And this column is intended to provide a few snapshots of country life from someone who loves the countryside but finds himself increasingly out of kilter with many who live there.

From a few thousand feet up you get a real perspective on the topography of southern England.  I was in a glider soaring over the Downs around Ringmer, and could see across to the Isle of Wight in one direction and back to Dungeness in the other.  And I realised how much of Britain is NOT built on.  Sure, in the car you can’t go far without encountering habitation.  But from aloft, fields seem to stretch unsullied to the horizon.

Yet those living in the country appear to feel it their bounden duty to stop anyone else doing so.  If ever there was a case of pulling up the drawbridge this is it.  A space in our village was sold recently. It used to be the pub car park.  But the Royal Oak was replaced by new houses a decade ago.  Now it’s the newcomers who are most vociferous in seeking to prevent further building.  Letters were sent round raising the spectre of developers moving in or, horror of horrors, travellers taking it over – though without evidence that any planned to do so.

The fact is that there is a housing crisis in the South East. Councils have to find building plots, and they should not be restricted to towns. Villages like ours must share the burden.  In my lifetime two shops and the pub have closed.  Surely with a few more houses locally we might be able to keep these important rural businesses going. And the old pub car park seems an ideal site. Though I’d better not be heard to say so for fear of ostracisation.