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?