A stink about beach sewage

For Hastings Independent Press

Making a stink about sewage on the beach 

By Kent Barker

It was a lovely evening, the tide was out and, since we are banned from the main beach at this time of year, Myrtle and I decided to walk under the cliffs eastwards from Rock-A-Nore.

            The sand soon gave way to an extraordinary assortment of rocks, burnished by the waves.  With four-paw traction Myrtle was able to leap over them with ease.  I’m a bit more cautious these days and so when I saw a long concrete embankment running parallel between cliffs and shore I climbed up and followed it along.  Perhaps five hundred meters from the car park, the concrete covering ceased, revealing a huge metal pipe. And soon this ended, allowing the liquid it was carrying to gush out onto the shore.  Now I don’t know if this was sewage but it certainly smelt rather like it.

            My interest in sewage (no jokes please) had been stimulated by news reports suggesting Hastings’ beaches are likely to fail a new, more stringent, EU Bathing Water Directive on pollution. This was based on regular samplings from last year showing levels of intestinal enterococci and Escherichia coli (E. coli) that fell short of the old guidelines, let alone the new.  This is obviously embarrassing for Hastings, bad for bathers, and could have a seriously detrimental effect on the tourist trade.  So what’s being done about it?

            Well as far as sewage is concerned, apparently not much.  The Environment Agency says the local sewage treatment works at Galley Hill which discharges through “long sea outfalls” at Bulverhythe and Combe Haven” were upgraded in 2003. And anyway they are “6 kilometres west of the bathing water”.  So that will be all right then.  Just avoid sea swimming at Bulvehythe.  Though, just a moment, isn’t that where they’ve just upgraded those attractive beach-huts.  Still if you’ve got a beach hut you can just sit in it and look at the sea.  Or around there probably, smell the sea.

            What seems to be the problem here is the definition of  ‘bathing water’.  They don’t monitor at Bulvehythe. For Hastings the beach immediately across from Pelham Crescent is where they do the sampling.  And even that’s none too good.  I quote from the Environment Agency again:

 “This bathing water is subject to short term pollution. Short term pollution is caused when heavy rainfall washes faecal material into the sea from livestock, sewage and urban drainage via rivers and streams. At this site the risk of encountering reduced water quality increases after rainfall and typically returns to normal after 1-3 days. The Environment Agency makes daily pollution risk forecasts based on rainfall patterns and will issue a pollution risk warning if heavy rainfall occurs to enable bathers to avoid periods of increased risk”.

            Personally I’ve never seen a pollution risk warning for the bathing beach at Hastings, but the lesson here seems to be, avoid sea bathing for at least three days after it has rained.  Though this being Britain, that’s likely to cut down your options a bit. 

Now, you may ask, how is the pollution getting to the sea in the first place?  And the answer is pretty much there in front of your very eyes.  From that bloody great pipe that disgorges water straight onto the beach at low tide.  Visitors often ask nervously what this is and are generally reassured when the reply comes, ‘Oh it’s just the outfall from the stream that runs through Alexandra Park.”  The trouble is that it’s this stream that appears to be one of the main sources of pollution. 

The Environment Agency focused their investigations between 2007 and 2010 in to the sources of pollution on the Alexandra Park Stream catchment and concluded:  “We have not yet identified specific sources of contamination. The Environment Agency introduced a DNA tracing technique that helps us identify whether sources of faecal pollution are human or animal… This means we can target further investigations and identify appropriate courses of corrective action.”

Yes, but hang on, this was six years ago and we’ve only got until October this year to clean up the discharges into the sea or Hastings is going to fail the EU Bathing Water Directive.

To be fair things are happening.  A huge project to reduce silt and increase aquatic plants is underway in the Park and a local pressure group Clean Seas Please is focusing attention on domestic and industrial pollution through incorrect plumbing connections, miss-disposal of fats oils and greases, and problems caused by putting any material other than toilet paper down the pan.

Somehow, though, it all feels as if it may be happening a bit too late.  And I’m not sure I’ll be joining my dog or my partner in much sea swimming this summer.  Especially not under the cliffs at the end of Rock-A-Nore.

A new Silent Spring?

 Times of Tunbridge Wells

Slipping towards a new Silent Spring?

By Kent Barker

As the weather gets warmer I’m able to breakfast outside and look across the garden to the fields beyond.  It’s not a particularly inspiring sight.  A weeping willow completely obscures the view of a couple of colourful shrubs and a bank of rhododendrons.  (Thank heavens for the spell checker – I’d never have got that last one.  Should you need to know, it’s Latin from Greek: rhodon – rose + Dendron - tree!).

The fields themselves are dullish too.  There’s no oil seed rape this year -which is a sadness and a blessing in equal parts.  Sad because my bees love it and it provides an early supply of food for them. A blessing because it might be killing the bees and, anyway, I hate it.  It’s such a garish colour and transforms swathes the landscape from bright young green to brash, visceral yellow.  And I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to native and traditional plants.  It’s why I’m none too fond of those rhododendrons. I’ve always considered them unwelcome 19^th century imports from China, totally out of keeping in the garden of a medieval house.

I had, likewise, always assumed that oil seed rape was a modern interloper to our fields, but apparently it was around in England in the 14^th century – pre-dating my abode.  Plus it’s used for production of bio-diesel which must be A Good Thing since it’s a renewable alternative to fossil fuels.  So I’d better amend my prejudice. 

Anyway there I am, sitting on the back terrace, sipping coffee and railing against the bloody immigrants (rhododendrons and OSR – not the other kind – you kip if you want to, I’m staying awake!) except that there is no rape this year.  In fact I don’t know what the farmer has planted.  I’ve lived most of my life in the country but still can’t always tell one crop from another.  A hawk from a handsaw, yes, barley from wheat when it’s just a few inches high, no. (Incidentally Shakespeare’s handsaw wasn’t that carpentry tool, it was a “heronshaw”. But nevertheless I’m pretty sure I could distinguish a heron from a raptor.)

Suddenly there’s a mighty roar of diesel engines.  This is not unusual. Loads of tractors pass during the day.  But this one is not on the road. It’s going up and down the field spraying copious quantities of chemicals over the unidentified crop.

For years I’ve been concerned about spraying.  It’s bad for the river which is only just beginning to get fish back in it.  And it’s bad for my bees if the pesticides are carried by the wind to their hives.  It’s probably also none too good for my health either, though the chemical companies will probably tell you their stuff is absolutely safe.

But that’s what they said about DDT.  It was even marketed as being ‘good for you’ until we began to realise it was killing off the birds as well as the bugs and poisoning the waters, and causing birth defects among wildlife and even getting into our bloodstreams alongside PCBs.  It took Rachel Carson and her seminal 1962 book Silent Spring to wake us up to what was happening, but even then it took a decade to instigate even a partial ban of the chemical which wasn’t restricted globally until as recently as 2001.

The question is, have we learned from our mistakes over DDT?  The current debate over Neonicotinoids would suggest not.  Neonics are systemic pesticides - a relatively new type of insecticide - used in the last 20 years to control a variety of pests, especially on oil seed rape.  But there’s a large body of evidence showing they are lethal to bees.  And so they’ve been banned across Europe since 2013.  But now the National Farmers Union is seeking a derogation to allow them to be used again in the UK. 

OK, I’m sorry about the problems arable farmers have managing their crops, but really, how short-sighted can you be?  The farmers need bees to pollinate their plants.  They’ve been told that a chemical they’ve been using on that crop is killing the bees.  So what do they do?  Go back to what they were using before? Find a non-toxic alternative?  No, they dispute the research and mount a PR campaign to be allowed to use the bee-killer again. 

The problem, ever since DDT, seems to be one of vested interests and a lack of effective regulation.  Guess when the US Department of Agriculture reported that DDT was “one of the most menacing” insecticides ever developed?  1945.  That’s right, 56 years before it was finally banned worldwide.  I have remarkably little confidence that we are not knowingly continuing to poison our planet.  And all in the name of profit. Now there’s something to really get exercised about.

The two-pub trick

 Times of Tunbridge Wells

Nostalgia and the two-pub trick

By Kent Barker

This is a tale of two pubs in my village, one of which has certainly been through the best of times as well as the worst.

Right through my late teens and into my thirties, the King William IV was the only one to go to.

It had low beams, two bars, a pair of Inglenook fireplaces and the best chilli con carne this side of Mexico. It was run by a famously cantankerous and slightly Sloaney couple, Nigel and Hilly Douglas, who had previously managed a bistro-cum-wine bar somewhere off the Kings Road and seemed rather to resent having to slum it in the country.

            On Friday nights everyone, but everyone, would be there and, for a decade or more, it hosted the unmissable social gathering of the week. I’d leave work in London and drive furiously to try to arrive before the 9.00pm cut off for food.  It was a toss up whether to stop and phone if delayed—there were no mobiles then of course. But it made little difference. Hilly would be just as short with you, muttering about how unreasonable it was to expect her to keep the kitchen open. This was despite the fact that I was among her best customers and this happened every week.

            Nevertheless, as landlords, they had the magic touch and their era at the William is still talked about with nostalgia whenever two or three of our generation gather over a pint.

            Eventually, though, the Douglases gave up village life and retreated to Tunbridge Wells to run a wine bar. The William was never the same again. It’s true a couple of landlords did their best to keep the tradition going, but it started to fade and we began, rather guiltily at first, to pop into the ‘other pub’ instead.

            This coincided with a new couple arriving and transforming the Bull. For years it had been the dustier, fustier poor relation. Now there were music nights, a darts team, a Sunday carvery and excellent pub food with a range of real ales that won it CAMRA area Pub of the Year twice in succession.

            As the Bull’s fortunes rose, the William’s declined until, finally, the brewery put it up for sale. And then an extraordinary thing happened.  Mark and Lucy from the Bull bought the William.

On the one hand this seemed like a cunning plan to neutralise the competition, but since the ‘Willie’ was providing only the most negligible of opposition, rather an expensive one.

            More money was ploughed in to transform it into a rather upmarket restaurant—all linen tablecloths, tall wine glasses and silver cutlery for five courses. Controversially, they changed the name. Down came the sign of the Hanoverian sailor king, and up went a portrait of a famous 18^th century courtesan, Kitty Fisher. As I remarked at the time, this seemed a slightly risky strategy. Ms Fisher had the moral rectitude of a tomcat (if that’s not a slightly strained metaphor) and was mistress to the sixth earl of Coventry, occasionally coming to blows with Lady Coventry in the street. Casanova eschewed her charms even though, as he remarked, one could have her for ten guineas.

Even the nursery rhyme for which she is remembered “Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it” is open to lewd interpretation over the double meaning of ‘pocket’ in the 1700s.

            But this was not the only risk faced by Lucy (no, the other Lucy, our landlady at the Bull). Far from neutralising the opposition, opening a rival inn in the village just created competition for their own successful pub. Yes, one was catering for up-market diners, the other more for drinkers with a penchant for good pub grub, but competition it was nonetheless.

And, sadly, so it proved. After a matter of a few months the Kitty closed.  Mark and Lucy are fairly phlegmatic about it saying they’ll chalk it up to experience, but they do admit to having taken a bit of a bath.

            So here’s the dilemma. They are now considering applying for change of use from business to residential.  Which in general is something our Parish Council opposes. We’ve lost a lot of commercial premises over the years and each one saps a bit more life from the community.    

            Many towns and villagers are now getting their pubs listed as Assets of Community Value.  An ACV doesn’t prevent change of use, but does enable local people to get involved if it were intended to be sold. Our village is in the process of opening a community shop. Might we, in the future, consider running a community pub? Or should we just accept that the William’s glory days are long gone and embrace the march of progress?

Hopping Mad

 For Times of Tunbridge Wells

Hopping Mad       

By Kent Barker

            I can just remember hop pickers in their huts in the next field. Or at least I think I can. It could be a false memory implanted by my grandparents’ subsequent conversations about the annual ‘invasion’. There’s no doubt that the poor East Enders, down in the hop gardens of Kent for working holidays instilled fear and trepidation throughout the locale. But, by the early 1950s, hop-picking machines were taking over and I may never actually have seen the families at work or living in the breeze-block huts with their corrugated iron roofs.

            This accommodation, provided by the growers, was about nine foot square, with an earth privy and communal cooking facilities nearby.  There are records of generations of individual families working the same farm. Wages in the ‘50s amounted to about £3 per week per family, but expenses were low, with the farm providing food and essentials. What they didn’t generally offer was beer, and it was the hoppers’ sessions in the local pub that made residents like my grandparents so anxious.

For almost a century it was an extraordinary social phenomenon. At its peak, more than 80,000 pickers poured into Kent in late August or early September. The nearest station to me, Hawkhurst, laid on almost 60 ‘Hopper Specials’. These trains brought 4,000 families to our area alone. Indeed, the branch line became uneconomic and closed once the annual migration ended. 

Mechanical picking also coincided with faster transport, so the hops didn’t have to be dried in an oast house in the immediate vicinity of the hop field.  It meant a huge number of local oasts became redundant. Now they’re mostly converted into homes. But I’ve often wondered at the economics of an industry that needed to construct substantial brick kilns and barns which were used for just a month or six weeks each year. There are five or six large oasts within a half mile of here and it seems extraordinary that they couldn’t have combined their operations and reduced costs. 

The point of all this nostalgia is that I spent part of the recent Bank Holiday weekend stringing up my hops. Which was a new experience. Even after the hopper huts vanished, hop gardens remained. But they have been declining year by year, recently often replaced by grape vines. Nevertheless I do like a hop bine or two over the fireplace. They look decorative and smell wonderful. But, being a bit of a skinflint, I rather resent paying between £5 and £10 each. So I thought I’d cultivate my own. After all how difficult could it be? Some even grow wild round here in the hedgerows.

            Wild, weed-like plants though were not what I wanted. So, last autumn, I consulted my local nurseryman and he fixed me up with—well nothing really—just three flowerpots with a dead-looking twig in each. Somewhat despondent, I left these outside the back door all winter and, without much hope, planted them by a south facing wall a couple of months ago.

            To my considerable surprise, and some delight, green shoots appeared and started winding their way round the bamboo stake. It was time to consult Mr Google and get out the string. Neither project turned out to be that simple.  There were plenty of pictures online of men on stilts tying string to overhead wires, or people with long poles somehow managing the same thing from the ground. But they were doing this on an industrial scale over huge fields. A simple diagrammatic explanation of how to string three plants next to a barn wall seemed entirely missing.

           Eventually, I suspended some wire between two brackets along the eaves and, from that, trailed lengths of twine which I’d cut in advance. Up the ladder I went, grabbed an end of string, tugged gently, only to find it was inextricably tangled with all the others. After a mere hour or so, I had three strings descending from the wire to a skewer embedded, somewhat insecurely, next to each plant.

            I remembered the 1950s’ British Pathé film I’d seen on-line with men competing against each other to string entire hop gardens. A complete row of plants took them just seconds. And, extraordinarily, the men on stilts never seemed to get their much more numerous pre-cut lengths of string tangled at all.

            But, I reflected later, sipping coffee and gazing on the fruits of my labours, at least I was helping to reverse the decline in British hop growing. It had reached a peak of 71,000 hectares in 1878,  but we now grow just 1,600. And that’s less even than North Korea. It may, however, take a while to overtake the current world leaders, Germany, with their 34,000 hectares under cultivation. I feel my three plants, though, have made a definite start.

A Supreme Bee-ing?

For Times of Tunbridge Wells

A Supreme Bee-ing?

By Kent Barker

It seems I may be undergoing an epiphany. And before you say: “Oooh, that sounds painful,” I should tell you that the term is generally defined as “a moment of sudden and great revelation or realisation”. In church parlance it apparently describes the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi. But let’s stick with the non-religious definition for a moment.

The thing is that, at this time of year, I suffer from crippling guilt—no, not Catholic guilt, the other kind—and I worry that I am a lousy beekeeper. Don’t get me wrong, I love my bees and there is nothing more wonderful that seeing them emerge from their hive on a warm spring morning and go about their business of house-keeping—clearing out the debris of the winter before flying off in search of pollen.

But, on one or two occasions in the past, they simply haven’t come out from the hive and, on inspection, I’ve found a large pile of dead bodies inside. This is particularly distressing both because they are such wonderful insects and are sorely needed for our survival, but more because it may have been me who caused their demise.

 Traditionally, beekeepers are taught that they can take (steal?) the colony’s food stores—the honey—as long as they feed them with sugar syrup in return. Calculating the amount of diluted sugar that’s needed is not an exact science and so, if your bees die, you are left with the worry you’ve not fed them enough and they’ve starved over the winter.

This, of course, doesn’t take into account any of the diseases they might have contracted, varroa, foul brood, chalk brood, or the mysterious CCD – colony collapse disorder. However, apart from the last, there are chemical treatments a conscientious beekeeper can administer to protect his little stripey charges.

But a conscientious beekeeper I am not. I generally open the hive up in the spring and make sure that there is evidence that the queen is laying eggs and raising brood. Then I leave them alone until there is a ‘super’ full of honey to remove. I replace this with fresh foundation comb, and do little else except watch them coming and going throughout the summer.

This means that, generally, they will swarm. As far as I am concerned, this is a good thing. I have no close neighbours. I might be able to catch the swarm and start a new hive. If I can’t, then it’s likely that they’ll find a hollow tree and create a feral colony. It means the old lot will produce less honey, but I generally get more than enough for myself and friends anyway.

If I’ve correctly calculated, and it’s been a productive year, and the swarming hasn’t depleted them too much, they won’t need feeding. There will be enough stores in the brood-box and new supers to last the winter. I usually intend to mix up the sugar solution and give them an autumn feed just in case,  but I don’t always get round to it. Hence my spring guilt if many have died.

Now to digress slightly: even though I am an avid Radio 4 listener and always awake to the Today programme, I rather dislike Thought for the Day. My main objection is that they won’t allow humanist speakers and, if those that believe there is a deity are to be catered for, then surely those who believe there is not, should too.

But, ironically, it was Anne Atkins’ homily at 7.50 the other morning that let to my moment of revelation. She had been using the hive as an analogy for a Christian society when she mentioned she was a practitioner of natural beekeeping. I rushed to the internet. YES, hallelujah (in the humanist sense of course) here was the justification—nay, the motivation and even inspiration—for my abject laziness.

Natural beekeeping holds that intervention is bad and should be minimised, swarming is good and should not be prevented and that feeding with sugar syrup is the work of the devil (well, pretty bad anyway as processed white sugar is more drug than natural food.)

The philosophy has further refinements, such as not providing foundation comb, encouraging drones and regarding the entire colony as a whole—a sort of single ‘bee’ organism, rather than 30,000 individual components. It seems that some studies have found that non-intervention and eschewing all chemical treatments produces better long-term results.

I need to find out more about the concept but I’m instinctively sympathetic to it. It’s just the nagging worry that my guilt has been assuaged as a result of a religious commentator on Thought For The Day. An epiphany is one thing, but a full-scale Damascene conversion quite another!