Of Mowers and Men

Countryside Column for 21 March

 Letting the grass grow under your feet

It’s the same every year.  The sun peeps out. The grass springs up. The mower is retrieved from the back of the shed.  You check the oil, add some petrol, and give the starting rope a long confident pull.  Nothing happens.  You push the choke fully on and tug again. Nothing.  You ease back on the throttle and … well you know the result. 

Shortly afterwards you are to be found at the service shop armed with your second mortgage and asking the nice man how long it’s likely to take.  And it’s always the same answer.  “Well, we’re really busy now.  The sun brings them all out. If you’d just brought it in a couple of months ago…”

Oh, come on! Who ever thinks of servicing their mower in January?

So this year I thought I’d circumvent all that.  My trusty old Stoic Landmaster that’s given sterling service for a quarter of a century was playing up last summer.  So I decided to grasp the nettle and go for a replacement. Google soon found the machine I wanted. The price was eye-watering, but then if (and I accept it’s a big IF) it lasts for 25 years, it will only cost a tad more than 50p a week. (Please don’t remind me that, for at least half the year, it will be doing absolutely nothing in the back of the shed.)

Since no local store sells it, I order online. Then I get the call. “Sorry it’s out of stock.  And the manufacturer says there’s a four week wait.” No problem there are other suppliers.  But it’s the same story. Out of stock. Month delay.  Minimum. (Please tell me how on earth can a mower manufacturer not have stock ready for the start of the mowing season!!!)

But the sun’s shining.  The grass is growing. The trusty Landmaster is retrieved from the shed. Levels are checked. A long, confident pull on the starting cord elicits …. nothing.

I know everyone is entitled to a living.  And I wouldn’t want to be a mower mechanic.  But really.  How can they sleep at night with their charges? If I’d had the Stoic serviced every year of its life I’d have paid seven times its purchase price.  But then I suppose if I’d had it serviced every year I wouldn’t be watching the grass grow, waiting for the distant call of the mower man.

Ovine Ultrasound

Countryside Column for 14 March 2014

A monitor to show ewe the spring lamb

Spring seems to have sprung and I’m not happy.

Usually I can’t wait for winter to end.  I love seeing snowdrops poking their noses up on verges. I venerate bunches of primroses and clumps of daffodils.  And  early pink and white blossom gives me hope of things to come.

But not this year.  It’s all too early.  Plus we haven’t really had winter yet.  I can only think of a couple of mornings when there’s been frost on the ground as I take Myrtle for her early run.  And she so loves the snow I feel somehow I’ve deprived her of her annual treat.

A good hard freeze would certainly help sort the fields.  The Land Rover will slip and slither on ice, but that’s better than being bogged down in mud.  And at least I’d be able to drive down to the bottom orchard to attend to the trees there.

That’s my problem with the early spring.  I’ve just not had enough decent days to do the pruning.  And the mild weather has brought the apple buds on, so as the blossom opens the pruning window will close

But the new season won’t wait for me. It’s certainly not waiting for the orchard sheep. Two-thirds have already gone back to the farm to lamb.  They’re the ones expecting twins or triplets.  The rest will be going soon.  It’s rather poignant. Most remaining ewes have green marks sprayed on their back to show they’re carrying singletons. Quite a few though have a red dot.  They’re the barren ones destined for slaughter.  There’s no sentimentality in sheep farming.  No lamb, no future.  And it’s all the fault of modern technology.

The same ultrasound that shows us a baby in the womb is now employed to find the fertility of a flock. The conditions are a little different though. The monitor and machine are run off a Land Rover battery via an inverter. The sheep are pushed through the pens in a line and the probe is held briefly against their woolen bellies.  The operator shouts the result and they are sprayed with the appropriate colour before being segregated into separate holding areas. There’s much baa-ing and bleating and pushing and pulling and hooves churning up the mud.

Next thing the lambs will be returning to gambol beneath the trees. Then we’ll know the new season really has started.

Hop Pickers Line

Countryside Column 7 March.

Walking along the tracks

Myrtle and I visited North London recently and tried a new walk along a disused railway track from Highgate to Finsbury Park.  It was excellent. For four-and-a-half miles the city disappeared and you felt you were almost in the country. In fact the Parkland Walk is now the longest Local Nature Reserve in the capital and is enthusiastically used by joggers, cyclists, walkers and schoolchildren.

It made me wonder just what was happening to the quaintly named Hop Pickers’ Line from Paddock Wood to Hawkhurst.  This too was supposed to have re-opened as a ‘leisure pathway’ but things have gone extraordinarily quiet on the project.

The eleven mile branch line was conceived by the Weald of Kent Railway Company in 1864 and went through many travails before the final section was opened in 1893. The original plan to extend it to Tenterden and Hythe was abandoned, and the service struggled to survive. Goods were the mainstay, including moving  a million potted plants  a year for branches of Woolworths. The hopping traffic helped, with 26 special trains a day each bringing in two hundred pickers.  But outside harvest time the line wanted for customers.

One of its passengers was my father who, in 1945, arrived home after five years in the army. I can just imagine the scene on the platform at Hawkhurst with my grandparents waiting anxiously for his train to appear.

Anyway, despite the patronage of various east enders and occasional relatives, it closed in 1961, cleverly avoiding the Beeching axe which would surely have fallen a few years later.  But, tragically, the land was sold off to private owners and amalgamated into farms and gardens.

In 2008 the Hawkhurst Parish Council and local business proposed re-opening it as a walk and cycleway. To launch the project dignitaries were photographed at the abandoned station. Lottery funds were sought. There was a bit of a row when the signal box there was sold off to the Kent and East Sussex railway to be re-erected at Robertsbridge, but apart from that little seems to have happened.

Apparently the County Council’s Public Rights of Way team have been negotiating with landowners for access, and two tunnels have been assessed for safety and lighting.  But no one at KCC seems able to tell me if it’s actually going to happen.

It’s a pity because Myrtle and I would like a new walk along the tracks.

The Bells …. The Bells

Countryside column  28 February

The Bells …. The Bells

It may be not be true, but it’s such a good story I’m going to retell it anyway.  A few years ago a couple left the city for peace and quiet in the countryside. They bought a charming house at the top of our village green right next to the church.

All was well until after the first week-end. The vicar received a call the following Wednesday evening, just as practice had started.  Please would he put a stop to the awful noise of the church bells? 

At first he thought it was a joke, but it soon became clear the newcomers were serious.  Pointing out that they had bought a house next to a bell tower and so might expect to hear them rung occasionally made no difference. Further complaints followed to the environmental health department. Eventually, whether because of jeers of villagers or the sound of the bells or both, they upped and left.

A recent appeal for new bell-ringers here reminded me of the tale.  St George’s has a magnificent ring of 12 bells, unique for Kent churches outside Canterbury Cathedral.

But participants are in such short supply that it is common for only 4 or 5 to be rung on a Sunday.  Which is a bit of a tragedy for ‘Tower Captain’ Rod Lebon who campaigned and fundraised tirelessly to augment the previous octave of bells. But ringers seem in increasingly short supply. “The youngest now is over 50,” he told me, “and it’s a demographic time bomb.  You must have younger brains to learn art of method ringing.”

Apparently it all starts with a “round”, then you are told to alter the order of the round through “call changes”,  but the real skill is “method” ringing when you effectively programme yourself to remember the changes.  And since your ultimate goal, a full “peal”, has 5000 changes, that requires some serious concentration and ability.

But neophytes shouldn’t worry. After an induction, it’s a weekly commitment of just an hour’s practice and half an hour’s ringing on Sunday. Later you can even earn money by ringing for weddings.

And according to Rod my story was apocryphal, at Benenden anyway. “Here we had the opposite issue.  One neighbour phoned the vicar to complain she couldn’t  hear the bells during practice so we had to open the shutters in the tower to let the sound out!”