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.

Bridging Design

Courier Countryside Column for 22 August

Bridging the Environmental Divide

            I can only imagine what countryside preservation campaigners would have said when the plans first appeared. After all it is one of the most beautiful valleys in the country. From the majestic hills to the south you can look down nearly a thousand feet to the river and the town below.

            The trouble was that all road users had to wind down this incline via a series of sharp switchbacks and then funnel right through the centre of the town, crossing an ancient bridge and starting the long ascent on the other side.

            The traffic queues were legendary and, in the height of summer, tailbacks started many miles before.

            Today, though, you cruise along the motorway, pausing only to pay your toll, and then have one of the most magical experiences in the world as you cross the viaduct which this year celebrates it’s tenth anniversary.

  It’s hard to know whether to look up at the slender masts each with their 11 pairs of sail-like stays or to look down at the to the river Tarn hundreds of feet below and across to the town of Millau nestling in the valley.

For me this is one of the greatest engineering achievements in history and one of the most stunningly beautiful pieces of design ever.

But it does impose a significant footprint on the landscape and you can understand why campaigners might have been horrified at the very idea of a man-made structure on such a scale ‘despoiling’ the beauty of nature.

I happen to think that the viaduct fits superbly into that landscape and actually enhances the view. And it has many practical advantages – enabling motorists to move freely to and from the south of France and ending the choking congestion for the local townspeople.

Perhaps the lesson is that, far from fearing change, we should be prepared to embrace progress. By all means let’s seek to lessen the environmental impact and promote excellence in design. But let’s not instinctively oppose things just because they are new.

And, of course, the designer of the Millau viaduct was the British architect Norman Foster. Which does no harm to the image of Brits in this part of France.  Locals may moan that we buy up their houses and leave them empty for most of the year and that we desecrate their language, but at least ‘we’ gave them the Millau viaduct!

Breadless in Abeilhan

Courier Countryside Column for 15 August 2014

Not Enough Bread for Village Shops to Survive

Quel désastre!  The bread shop in the square has closed.  As long as I’ve been visiting the little Languedoc village of Abeilhan there’s always been a boulangerie opposite the bar.

Other institutions have come and gone. Some years back the tobacconist and the pharmacy deserted the square for new premises down on the main road.  The bar itself seems to have been tottering on the brink of closure for years. Its main customers appear to be agricultural workers knocking back a quick pastis first thing in the morning on their way to tend the vines. In July and August a few tourists or second homeowners take a beer of an evening, sitting under the ancient pine tree and watching the colours change on the stonework of the surrounding houses. It may be crowded to bursting point during the village’s various fêtes. But such sporadic custom can hardly provide a living for the owner.

What we can’t understand is why it doesn’t amalgamate with the now moribund restaurant/pizzeria next door. This used to be run by Carole and her chef-husband Thierry. The pizzas were excellent, the salads adventurous, the ice creams fabulous, although most everything else on the over-extensive menu was very average.

Nonetheless the ambiance was superb and one could forgive the stunningly slow service: Carole was reluctant to take on any help other than her teenage daughter regardless of how many customers she had. But she and Thierry lost heart. Rushed off their feet for six weeks in the summer but then without a single customer on numerous winter nights meant that their average income was well below the minimum wage.

Visitors dream of how it could be. The bar and restaurant knocked into one with café-style tables set out in the square.  Local village wines served along with simple home cooked food. And then someone will say: “Well, why don’t we do it then? Sell up in England and buy the place.” And then there’s silence as they contemplate the long lonely winter nights.

But to lose the bread shop is sad. The little grocer’s next door does sell bread, but it’s no longer baked on the premises.  And it’s nearly a euro a baguette - double the price at the supermarket a couple of kilometers away.

The truth is that, whether in rural France or home in Kent, keeping village shops alive is becoming more and more difficult.

Bile at the BBC

Courier Countryside Column for 8 August 2014

Far From Bowled Over

            There are few things I find so enticing in summer as the prospect of watching a game of cricket on our village green while supping a pint. The vista of  the parish church behind men in white hitting a red leather ball with a piece of carved willow has a timeless quality that connects one to generations past and, it’s hoped, with generations still to come.

            But for the cricket aficionado it’s the county and national games that really matter.  When I was a boy, my father used to take me to Hastings to see the local ‘derby’ matches between Kent and Sussex.  Sadly that can no longer happen. There was already a hierarchy of First Class and Minor Counties but then the authorities split the 18 upper level clubs into two divisions.  Kent languishes in Division Two, while Sussex retains its place in the one above.  Living on the border of the two counties, it’s frustrating never to be able to watch my two local teams play each other in the proper three-day game.

            My boyhood experience can also never be revived because of the calamitous decision to turn Hastings’ Central Cricket Ground into the Priory Meadow Shopping Centre. In 1989 the ground hosted its last county game when Sussex beat Kent in front of 1,000 spectators.

It’s just possible the town actually needed an anonymous shopping mall – but surely not by destroying one of most revered first class grounds in the country, and at the expense of a wonderful bit of open space right in the urban centre. (The final insult is that ghastly sculpture of a batsman falling over his own wicket after playing the most ungainly shot in the history of the game, right in the centre of Queen’s Square.)

But my real bile concerns the national game and is reserved for the decision of the BBC (an institution I worked for and generally admire) to ban Test Match Special to internet listeners overseas. This incomprehensible and ludicrous action means, even as a license payer, when travelling abroad I can’t listen to Radio 5 Live Sports Extra or Radio 4 Long Wave.  Well actually I can. Unofficially.  I can hear both channels on the TV via Freesat or Sky, or with a little technical jiggery-pokery, I can use a proxy server. Which makes the decision even more absurd.  Tony Hall – please reverse this one NOW!

Gliding to a new perspective

Courier Countryside Column for 31 July.

Pulling up the Drawbridge

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.

The trial flight was a generous birthday present from a year ago and I’d been waiting for the right weather conditions to go up.  I assumed I would need a really clear day and was a bit disappointed when, on the drive over to the airfield, a few grey clouds started gathering.  But it turned out they were just what was wanted as the best thermals to lift a glider are to be found beneath them.  The only problem was that the circling round and round to keep us going up was inclined to induce airsickness.

Anyhow from that height you can see just 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 sometimes it feels as if those living in the country consider it their bounden duty to stop anyone else doing so.  If ever there was a case of pulling up the drawbridge this seems like it. 

An open space in our village was sold recently. It used to be the pub car park. But the Royal Oak was replaced by houses a decade ago.  Now it seems to be the newcomers who are among the most vociferous in seeking to prevent further building. Meetings were held and letters sent round raising the spectre of developers moving in or, horror of horrors, travellers taking it over (though without the slightest evidence that any might do so).

The fact remains that there is a housing crisis in the South East. Councils have to find building plots, and they should not be restricted to towns. Poor Hawkhurst has been fighting to stave off unsustainably large developments.  So arguably hamlets like ours should 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 did seem an ideal site. Though I’d better not be heard to say so locally for fear of ostracism.

The Futility of War

 Courier Column for 24 July

Dulce et Decorum Est ...

Sitting at the back of Westminster Hall, staring at the magnificent hammer-beam roof, I let the music wash over me.  It was Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang. The combined forces of the Parliament and Bundestag choirs were doing a magnificent job.

The concert was to commemorate the centenary of the start of the first world war and it seemed entirely appropriate that the two parliamentary choirs should be singing together.  There was a moving speech by the German Speaker, quietly acknowledging his country’s part in that and the subsequent war.

I shan’t be around for the activities in our village to mark the outbreak of war in August 1914.  There are thirty-two names on our war memorial - boys and young men, aristocrats and farm labourers – killed during the four years’ carnage.

I am sure that the commemoration in the parish church will be a somber and dignified affair.  But there is a nagging voice that says events like these, in villages like ours, up and down the country, are somehow lacking context.

Popular phrases “war to end all wars”, “just cause”, “bravery” and above all “sacrifice”, are likely to be much in evidence but seem somehow inapposite.  Alternatives such as “lambs to slaughter”, “lions led by donkeys”, “military disaster”, “human catastrophe” might be more pertinent.

An excellent group entitled “No Glory in War” sums up a lot of this thinking.  We are not “celebrating” the centenary, we are “commemorating” it.  And we should mark it with the realization that this was a competition among the contemporary super powers for global influence rather than any victory for democracy.

I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.  Not my words, but those of Siegfried Sassoon. The idea ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ (sweet and fitting to die for your country) is an old lie.  Not my words but Wilfred Owen’s.

So on August 3^rd I’ll remember the 32 from my village.  But I’ll reflect that it was most probably pressure from peers and society, with the Kitchener posters and white feathers, that influenced their decision to join up. I doubt not their bravery, but could it have been the fear of the firing squad that dissuaded them from running?  I don’t think they voluntarily made the “ultimate sacrifice”.  I think they were cynically slaughtered by the powers that be.

Burning Issue

Courier Countryside Column for 18 July

The Burning Issue at the Orchard

A debate is raging in the Community Orchard.  Every winter I have around 2000 apple trees to prune.  Generally I leave the cuttings on the ground and then get a helper to make small piles of them every 50 meters or so. The idea is that we’ll use the tractor to collect them into a few really large piles where they can be left to rot down naturally, in the meantime serving as excellent wildlife sanctuaries.

Many’s the time Myrtle can be found with her nose poked into the pile of branches excitedly sniffing out some warm bloodied creature whose nest or burrow is safely hidden in the middle.

The problem is that we’ve been waiting for ages for forks on the front of the tractor with which to collect the cuttings and transport them to the big piles.  Just as we were about to commission someone to make up a set, the tractor was stolen.  Now, finally, we’ve replaced it with a relatively modern (well  late 1970s anyway) Fiat.  This is, I have to say, pretty much the ugliest agricultural vehicle of all time.  It is utterly utilitarian with no concessions whatsoever to design.  Which is particularly surprising when you think of Italian motor vehicles like Ferrari and Alfa Romeo and Lancia with their classic elegant lines. 

Whatever. The tractor doesn’t need to be elegant.  It just needs to clear unsightly piles.  And after the ministrations of ‘Tractor’ John (whose nickname I bestow not just because he’s built a bit like one but because, as I’ve mentioned before, he seems to favour them over cars every time) the Fiat now has an excellent set of pick up tines or spikes on the front loader.  So it’s ready to move the piles of cuttings. 

But, and you just knew there’d be a but, the committee has in the meantime decided that it would be quicker, easier and tidier to burn them instead.

I’m rather against this for several reasons.  Firstly because, unless you have dozens of fires all round the orchard, you are still going to have to move the prunings into one or two big piles.  Secondly burning anything adds CO2 to the atmosphere – in this instance completely unnecessarily – thus increasing global warming, and thirdly it destroys valuable habitat for wildlife.  For me it’s a no brainer, but I have yet to persuade my fellow committee members.

Seeing Red on Facebook

Courier Countryside Column for 11 July

Danger of Demonising Travellers

I have a number of ‘friends’ on Facebook whose views I do not necessarily share.  And sometimes they post something that so incenses me that I fire off an intemperate comment.

One such was triggered by an article in the Telegraph alleging Travellers, having taken over a favourite spot in a village, only agreed to leave after local residents clubbed together and bought the field from them - for £75k more than they’d originally paid.

My ‘friend’ posted about the Travellers:  “I detest the PC attitude that tries to protect their criminal ways in the name of equality.”  And a ‘friend’ of his responded: “Direct action. Don't wait on the state.”

Well, I know I really shouldn’t have, but I just saw red, typed the following sarcastic comment and hit the send button:  “why don’t you just round them up and put them in a concentration camp, after all they’re not human.”

A few people supported my ironic stance and a lively debate followed.  On one side was the view was that we demonise this group for choosing a lifestyle different to ours and we should show compassion to people less fortunate.  But the other strand views Travellers collectively as petty larcenists and asks how you’d feel if their caravans moved onto your land or land next to you?

A little research shows that statutory responsibility for councils to provide sites for Travellers was removed in 1994 leading, unsurprisingly, to an increase in unauthorised encampments.  Government figures suggest 25% of the 15,000  Gypsy and Traveller caravans in England are on unauthorised sites.

The same report goes on to say: “Gypsies and Travellers are believed to experience the worst health and education status of any disadvantaged group in England. Research has consistently confirmed the link between the lack of good quality sites …  and poor health and education. The provision of more authorised sites will help contribute to better health and education outcomes in the area”

So there you have it.  You allow local authorities not to make proper provision. Unauthorised sites increase, health and education falls and popular prejudice grows.

So what’s being done?  Well Whitehall’s ‘new approach’ is for local authorities to ‘take the lead’ in assessing the needs of Gypsies and Travellers.

But even if their assessment demonstrates a need, they still don’t actually have to do anything about it. Terrific. Is it any wonder intolerance increases?

Of Mice and Kestrels

Courier Countryside Column for  4^th July.

Mowing with Mice and Kestrels

One man went to mow a meadow.  One man and a pair of kestrels.  It was quite exciting. (I know… I ought to get out more).  They were hovering just a few feet above me waiting to pounce on their prey.

Actually I felt a bit sorry for the moles and voles and field mice.  They’d been happily hidden in the long grass, well protected from aerial bombardment.  Now here I was cutting away their camouflage.  I’d noticed a few scurrying off as the tractor and topper passed by.  And then, suddenly a sizeable shadow appeared on the ground.  Possibly a creature out of Harry Potter I thought idly.  But as I glanced up, all I could see was what looked like a pigeon.

Regular readers may remember my inability to tell a pigeon from a kestrel when one tried a kamakazi run against my back door last autumn and broke its neck.

But although I may not know much about birds, I do know that pigeons seldom hover like hawks and so I looked again.  It was so close I could see the brown feathers on its back, its yellow talons and its hooked-beak face.  Then in an instant it dropped from the sky like a stone, grabbed a small bundle of brown fur, and rose again into the air, triumphant.  Moments later another identical bird appeared and the two of them hovered and dived as I drove up and down.

It certainly cheered up a dullish task.  I love driving the tractor, but mowing is rather repetitive. It needed doing though.  As you read this a few hundred people will be in the field chilling to the sounds of our “SOL Party” mini festival.  It’s now in its eighth year so I’ve got the organisation down to a fine art – which is to say that out of utter chaos generally comes some semblance of order.  Although it’s for members only it is possible to join up at the gate, so if you fancy coming check it out on Facebook or via Google.

Now, next job is to send the application to register the tractor back to the DVLA.  Again. The helpful people at Zetor in Coventry checked with head office in the Czech Republic and established it was manufactured in 1974.  But I’m not convinced even that evidence will be enough to satisfy the Swansea bureaucrats.