A bold new scheme is in place which claims to be able to kill off the idea of fracking, give us a hugely-important source of sustainable energy - and boost the British farming community at the same time.
An end to fracking, a boost to farming, and a simple, easy way to replace one of our most important carbon-based energy sources?
No, this isn’t the latest dream of the modern-day alchemists trying to make cars which run on water. Instead, it’s the vision of Ecotricity, a British power company focusing on renewable sources of energy, who have a plan to make gas from grass – and turn it into a major new industry.
The firm, backed by millionaire businessman Dale Vince, has set its sights on providing a new, renewable source to replace the natural gas which currently comes from the (dwindling) North Sea reserves, as well as the likes of Norway and Qatar. Instead of drawing the gas from the bowels of the planet, Ecotricity claims that it can be created from grass on a large scale – and they have put into motion plans to build a new plant which will prove the concept.
The idea sounds simple: grass is grown and harvested, then broken down in a ‘anaerobic digester’ and thereafter turned into biomethane that – at least in theory – could be refined to a sufficient quality that it could be added straight into the existing natural gas network. That process of transformation should take just 45 days.
‘It’s become possible to make green gas and put it into the grid, in the same way we’ve been doing with green electricity for the last two decades,’ explains Vince.
‘The current way of doing that is through energy crops and food waste – but both have their drawbacks.
‘Through our research, we’ve found that using grass is a better alternative, and has none of the drawbacks of energy crops, food waste or fracking – in fact, it has no drawbacks at all.’
‘We now have a more than viable alternative to fracking, which people have been fighting tooth and nail up and down the country to prevent,’ adds Vince.
‘It’s not too late, because fracking hasn’t started yet. We need a proper review of where Britain gets its gas from – we can either frack the countryside or we can grow the grass. It’s that simple.’
The company press release contains a mild threat aimed at the government, suggesting that the building of the new plant won’t go ahead without government subsidies: ‘[It] does depend on whether government energy policy will support this simple, benign and abundant energy source ,’ says Vince.
His case is backed up by words from Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone and Greenpeace’s chief scientist Doug Parr, the latter saying that, ‘as long as it’s not competing with food production, green gas like this project can be really helpful in getting the UK onto a cleaner and lower carbon path.’
Vince claims that agriculture will not be affected at all, point to figures suggesting that there are six million hectares of land across the country which are unsuitable for arable farming, but which can be used for grass. Should all that land be dedicated to producing gas via grass, Ecotricity claim that it could meet the needs of 97% of current gas usage in Britain – as well as providing a £7.5bn industry and ‘up to 150,000 jobs’.
More reliance on things being grown rather than imported will, of course, be good news for farmers – as the company’s press release points out: ‘making green gas from grass… will support food production by improving soils, create wildlife habitats, and allow farmers to financially diversify in the face of lost EU subsidies following Brexit.’
Fracking, Brexit and farming subsidies – there’s no denying that Ecotricity know the right buzzwords to use when trying to get their name out there. If they can prove to be as canny when it comes to getting this audacious scheme up and running, then there could be a lot of beneficiaries.
And once they’ve got this project cracked? It’ll be time for the company’s best brains to get working on that car which runs on water…
Many of the finest manufacturers and retailers, for reasons that are probably to do with scenes such as that in the video above, don’t get involved. Fortnum & Mason, to name one example, are not offering any deals on Friday. Harrods have also sat on the sidelines in recent years, while some retailers have even made a point of closing for the day to demonstrate their distaste.
There are also plenty of smaller companies who will be offering deals as well, however.
So, to help you find what you need, here’s our pick of the best deals out there right now.
Our pick of the best Black Friday deals
Country Life Magazine – 50% off
Where else can we start but with ourselves? We’ve got a superb deal on subscriptions running all weekend, offering the magazine at half price.
The deal comes in at £85 a year (51 issues), though you can pay quarterly if you prefer (it’s £21.25 a quarter, with no price rise for at least a year).
The furniture and home accessories retailed has some truly beautiful items for sale. And they are offering 15% off, using the BLACKFRIDAY code on their website.
Surface View – 15% off
This Reading-based firm makes prints, murals and textiles from fine art prints, drawing on a selection of over 3,000 images from the likes of the National Gallery, V&A and the British Library. Their Black Friday offer is 15% off everything.
The White Company – Everything (almost)
The clothes and home accessories shop is offering 30% off ‘almost everything’ (things already discounted seem to excluded) as of Wednesday morning, through until next Monday.
In addition to their own deals – of which there seem to be several hundred – John Lewis appear to be working overtime to try and match competitors’ prices, under their ‘Never knowingly undersold’ policy. And rather than hide things throughout the site, they’ve collected their price match items in one place.
The furniture and home accessories retailed has some truly beautiful items for sale. And they are offering 15% off, using the BLACKFRIDAY code on their website.
La Redoute – 40% off everything
The French giant has a very generous-seeming 40% off when you enter the code BLACKFRIDAY at their online checkout. Even sale items (some already reduced by 50%) are included in the offer.
Selfridges – 20% off ‘Christmas Shopping’
It’s a rather vague promise, but the code provided on the ‘Christmas Comes Early’ page of the Selfridges website will knock one fifth off prices for gifts, and 10% off beauty products and perfume. The offers will be available in store as well.
Amazon – Moët & Chandon champagne
Did you know Amazon has a virtual champagne ‘shop’ within its many pages? No, nor did we. But it seems that they do, and their offer of a bottle of Moët for £23.99 (including delivery) seems hard to turn down.
What is Black Friday, and when is it?
For the uninitiated (count yourselves lucky) it’s the Friday which coincides with the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the USA, which for many years has been a major pre-Christmas shopping day across the Atlantic. Shops, of course, caught on, and began offering heavy discounts to get customers through the doors. Thus, Black Friday was born.
The idea of a big sale weekend a month before Christmas has now caught on in Britain as well – and this year Friday 25 November is the day.
How about Cyber Monday?
Once upon a time, getting a Black Friday discount meant fighting your way through hordes of highly over-excited shoppers in order to wrestle over a pullover or a lamp.
Hardly edifying. Thankfully, things have moved on somewhat.
The marvel that is internet shopping means that you can get secure your bargain with the tap of a phone screen or click of a mouse.
What’s more, online retailers have now decided that they might as well continue the bonanza throughout the weekend to finish on the following Monday. And since no good marketing idea is complete without someone trying to rename an entire day, Cyber Monday was born.
Sussex sparkling wines have cemented protected name status, putting themselves up there with champagne, Cornish clotted cream... and of course Melton Mowbray pork pies.
Sussex sparkling wine has been granted protected regional status by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) following a lengthy campaign.
Once something of a joke, the stellar trajectory of the reputation of English sparkling wine has seen it widely accepted in some of the smartest establishments across both Britain and Europe. And Sussex vineyards, which produce around a quarter of all English wine, have been at the vanguard. Earlier this year, The Times’s wine critic Jane McQuitty described East Sussex producer Tillington’s 2010 vintage as “a magnificent bubbly” adding that it is, “every bit as good as a French prestige champagne.”
This latest feather in its cap from DEFRA means that only producers based in Sussex, and who meet a set of agreed guidelines, will be able to sell their fizz with the Sussex label.
However, while winemakers in Sussex will be popping corks at the news, many in Kent, Surrey and Hampshire are less than impressed. Several had been pushing for a designation which covered the whole region. Now, it seems more likely that they will have to apply for their own similar protected status.
A photo posted by Rathfinny Estate (@rathfinnyestate) on
DEFRA’s official decision, which has been in the pipeline for some time, means that the granting of EU-wide ‘Protected Designation of Origin’ status (as enjoyed by regions such as Champagne and La Rioja) is now a formality of paperwork. Melton Mowbray pork pies, Jersey Royal potatoes, Cornish pasties and Stilton, strict rules on geography and ingredients are imposed on those wishing to use the name.
Whether that status will still be respected after Brexit negotiations are completed is another matter, however. As of course is the question of how many (if any) non-Sussex wineries have been labelling their goods as Sussex-based in the first place.
‘You romanticise a little bit… it’s part of the packaging’
Those concerns aren’t really the point, of course, since PDO status is as much a matter of marketing as anything else. But the power of such things shouldn’t be underestimated, as Antony Foster, chair of the UK Vineyards Association, explained when speaking to thedrinksbusiness.com earlier this year:
“Wine is not just simply something that you quaff: you look at the label, you talk about it and you romanticise a little bit about it. This is part of the packaging. And if you can say as much as you can about a wine, somehow it gets better and better when come to drink it. And this is what the Sussex thing is going to do.”
The bubbly’s image certainly seems to be on the mind of Mark Driver. He is the owner of East Sussex’s Rathfinny estate, and has been one of the loudest voices fighting Sussex’s cause. He told The Times that, “We believe this will help Sussex become synonymous with high quality sparkling wine.
“So when you go into a bar in London or Tokyo you will be asked: ‘Would you like a glass of champagne or a delicious glass of Sussex?'”
The freezing cold but staggeringly beautiful weather over the past few days has thrown up all sorts of oddities.
With temperatures sinking well below freezing across most of Britain in the past few days, strange ice formations have been appearing across the country.
For while the ice is hugely inconvenient for those scraping off car windscreens, luckier types who have the time to wrap up warm and get outside have been rewarded with some quite fabulous sights.
Several people across Scotland, for example, have spotted hair ice (as seen at the top of this page), with one lady in Nairn sharing this picture with the BBC:
It’s a very rare type of ice formed only in wood – and, according to scientists at the University of Bern, only wood which contains a fungus called exidiopsis effusa.
When humidity is high but temperatures are below freezing, the fungus grows in such a way as to produce microscopic strands of ice hair, each less than 0.02mm thick.
Photo: Ronald Huizer
That’s four times thinner than the average European human’s hair!
Hair ice is just one of the oddities spotted, though: pancake ice has also been seen across Scotland.
It’s a very rare type of ice which makes a river look like it’s been covered with silvery lily pads.
They’re created when smooth lumps of ice are formed upstream, but knock into each other repeatedly on their way downstream, leading to the characteristic upturned edges.
If you’re heading out in the next few icy days, also look out for frost flowers – sometimes called ‘rabbit ice’ – which are usually caused by sap escaping from a plant, and which are exquisitely beautiful:
If you’re out and about with young ones, however, we’re prepared to bet that they’d rather see a ‘Snow Doughnut’ – an incredibly rare phenomenon on British shores, though some were spotted in Yeovil in 2010.
It’s formed in particularly specific circumstances: when the top layer of snow starts to melt and go slightly sticky, it can be blown by a strong wind around and around into a disc shape. The centre of the disc is usually blown away, leaving what appears to be a giant snow tyre.
Finally, there’s a much smaller but equally exotic formation: needle ice. It’s formed when the ground temperature is above freezing, but the air temperature is below freezing. Water below the surface is drawn up and freezes in needles which can grow up to four inches long – and topped by a little crumb of earth which has been pushed up.
The shortlist for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards is out - and you have a chance to vote for your favourite.
For those who love wildlife, photography or both, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards are a seasonal highlight. Now in its 53rd year, the competition showcases a quite extraordinary breadth of mesmerising photography.
This year the Natural History Museum, who run the awards, have organised a ‘People’s Choice’ award to let you vote for your favourites. 25 of the 52 photographs shortlisted for the main award can be chosen from – and all 25 of those pictures can be seen below.
With 25 white squirrels in the country, spotting one is a rarity indeed.
A Country Life reader has sent us a beautiful photograph of the rare albino squirrel who lives in his garden.
Thomas Millington contacted us to let us know that this cheeky little chap has been living in his garden in Burwash, East Sussex, for the last couple of weeks.
“I first spotted it when I saw a white thing on the ground in amongst the leaves,” says Thomas.
“When I walked up to it it ran up into the trees.”
The unsolicited visitor wasn’t put off by this encounter, it seems.
“Its been around for a couple of weeks wondering up and down the trees,” Thomas adds.
“Sometimes it’s on the ground but runs back into the trees where you can’t see it.”
This white squirrel has been living in Thomas’s garden for a couple of weeks
Thomas is very lucky indeed to have seen one: while there are 2.5 million squirrels living in Britain, the chances of one being albino are estimated at 100,000-to-1. That means there are probably no more than a couple of dozen white squirrels in Britain at any one time.
Where one is spotted, however, more are likely to be found since they are believed to live in small colonies. That makes it less surprising that this is the second white squirrel Thomas has seen at his house. Sadly, the first sighting was of squirrel which had somehow met its demise before Thomas discovered it on the driveway.
Albino squirrels: The facts
Albino squirrels – as with albinos of any species – lack the pigment melanin, giving them white fur and red eyes.
Albinos have markedly poorer eyesight and hearing that normal squirrels. Melanin plays a role in the development of the eyes, without which focusing and depth perception are impaired.
In North America, non-albino white squirrels have been spotted as well. They have a different gene which produces white fur, leaving the squirrels with dark eyes.
As well as albino squirrels, there are also ‘melanistic’ squirrels. These squirrels have a surfeit of melanin, making them black all over.
When keen cake-maker Lynn Nolan was asked for an idea to help raise funds for the local church roof, she knew exactly what to say
A village in the Peak District has been recreated in quite the most extraordinary cake we think we’ve ever seen.
‘Cakes’ rather than cake, actually, because several dozen were needed to put together this recreation of Youlgrave in Derbyshire, which is being auctioned off next Thursday 15th December.
Lynn Nolan, a retired florist, was asked way back in May if she had any ideas to help raise the £250,000 needed to fix the roof of All Saints Church in Youlgrave.
One thing sprang to mind. A few years ago while living in Scotland, Lynn had made a small village from cake – one that included a few cheeky touches, including this builder showing off, ahem, a spot of cleavage:
Lynn suggested she could do the same but on a much bigger scale.
The good people of Youlgrave jumped at the idea – no wonder, considering that Lynn had recently finished a wedding cake recreation of Beatrix Potter’s Hilltop Farm. That had caused such a stir that people had come from far and wide to see it. “It was like Lourdes,” chuckles Lynn. “There was a steady stream of people coming along the street, arriving at the door and saying ‘We’ve come to see the cake’.”
The village was mobilised within days. For starters they scrounged around for ingredients, rustling up eggs, flour and butter to help Lynn out with everything she needed. In fact, she’d often come downstairs in the morning to find something had been left on the doorstep to help her out.
Even the baking was a collective effort: Lynn made batches of cake mix and handed them out for people to put in the oven while they were doing their Sunday lunches.
And there were even a few volunteers who helped out with mixing and colouring the icing, though it was Lynn herself who applied it.
That final step alone, turning the marzipan-covered cakes into buildings, took her 387 hours!
The level of detail is quite incredible. Take the local shop, for example:
As you can see, all the fruit and veg have been lovingly recreated – and there are even miniatures cakes!
And the inside of the local pub, The George, hasn’t been neglected either: there are tiny glasses on the bar (made from gelatin), while the plates that decorate the walls of the real pub have been made from buttons.
All that leaves just one question: can you eat it?
The answer is an emphatic yes. Lynn preserved the cakes by steeping them in alcohol – specifically, whisky – and they will last years.
That’s probably a good thing: Lynn adds that the wedding cake Hilltop Farm hasn’t been touched yet by the happy couple. They are using it as a bedside lamp…
It’s all in a great cause, then – to make sure that All Saints is still around in years to come for future generations to enjoy… and perhaps even to recreate in cake for themselves.
The famous California tree which has allowed generations of tourists to walk through its centre has fallen down at last.
Sad news came out of California early on Tuesday morning: a fierce storm at the weekend toppled the famous giant sequoia with a tunnel running through the centre.
The annual storm known as the Pineapple Express, combined with floodwater and trunk and root decay, took down the 1,000-year-old tree at Calaveras Big Trees State Park.
Properly known as the ‘Pioneer Cabin Tree’, this mighty feat of nature was a true icon. 100 feet tall (about two-thirds the height of Nelson’s Column) and 22ft across, it had a hole carved through the centre through which generations of tourists have driven through.
The tunnel through the tree was in itself ancient: it was carved out in the 1880s after lightning strikes had previously hollowed out much of the trunk.
The tree won’t be cleared away, according to park staff: “It will most likely remain where it fell,” they said in a statement, “providing habitat for many creatures and slowly decomposing to improve the soil for future sequoias.”
The world’s most famous trees
There is no doubt that the tree was one of the most famous in the world; many other fine, rate trees still survive.
The ‘General Sherman’ tree in California (pictured on the right) is still standing, for example. It is believed to be the largest in the world by volume, at 275ft high and 100ft in circumference around the base. That’s only a little shorter than Big Ben.
Back in Europe, there’s another equally marvellous tree in Sweden: Old Tjikko. It’s a Norway Spruce that was once thought to be the oldest individual tree in the world, at 9,550 years. That is something of a fudged number, however: it’s actually just part of a plant which has survived that long. The tree trunk currently referred to as Old Tjikko is actually only a few hundred years old.
That’s nothing compared to Methuselah, in California’s White Mountains, which is closing in on its 5,000th birthday. It was long believed to be the oldest tree in the world, but now a nearby pretender has claimed that crown instead. It’s a sad day for the oldest chap in the nursing home has their proud record taken by a new inmate, eh?
Britain’s most famous trees
Britain has plenty of its own famous trees, of course – and the nice people at Forest Holidays took a few minutes to send us a list of their favourites.
Take the Birnam Oak, for example. This handsome fellow is one of the oldest trees in Birnam Wood, so famous that it was actually immortalised by Shakespeare in Macbeth 400 years ago.
Sherwood Forest also has a wonderful old oak which is part of national culture: the cavernous Major Oak has a hollow which legend tells was the secret hideout of Robin Hood and his Merry Men.
Then, there’s the tree which arguably changed the world as we know it: the Flower of Kent tree. Why is it so famous? Simply for this: the story goes that this is the tree under which Isaac Newton was sitting when an apple fell, hitting him on the head and giving him the revelation about the laws of gravity.
Of course, even a cursory glance will tell you that this tree is rather less than 350 years old. But this is not an individual tree we’re talking about: it’s a type of tree, a cooking apple cultivar grown from the famous apple itself. Newton’s fame meant that the apple tree spread across Britain and beyond – all of which were descended from a single tree at Newton’s home, Woolsthorpe Manor.
In December 1916 Country Life magazine was granted extraordinary access to The White House.
With Donald Trump becoming the building’s newest resident, we take a look at what it was like then and how it has changed today.
It’s fascinating to see what has changed. Te cabinet room, for example, was completely rebuilt in 1934, hence the major difference. You’ll also notice that the desk has changed; the current desk – known as ‘The Resolute Desk’ – was first brought into the Oval Office in JFK’s administration.
But it’s even more fascinating to see what has remained the same. The Main Entrance Hall, for example, remains a carbon copy of what existed 100 years ago – right down to the choice of vegetation.
As for what it will look like in another hundred years?
Who can say. Many, however, will breathe a sigh of relief if we even make it through the next four years without the Roosevelt Room being turned into a gift shop and and the Rose Garden paved over to provide a new parking facility…
N.B. The modern East Room photograph originally used to illustrate this article has now been removed from the White House website. Here’s an alternate image by White House photographer Robert Knudsen:
EU rules have stopped attempts to ban export of live animals for slaughter, but with Brexit looming Selina Scott and Joanna Lumley have joined a campaign to bring the trade to an end.
Every year, Britain exports 30,000 live animals for slaughter. They travel in dire conditions that some don’t survive and, days later, when they reach their destination – often a country beyond Europe, where welfare rules are less strict or non-existent, perhaps in North Africa or the Middle East – they can face ritual slaughter, without being stunned, for religious festivals.
Until now, MPs have argued that EU laws prevent the UK from blocking trade in cattle and sheep – attempts to replace the exports of live animals with chilled carcasses have been ruled unlawful under EU law – but with Brexit on the horizon there is new hope, which inspired hundreds to march on Westminster in protest last year, and a petition to sign.
‘Investigations [into the transport of animals] by the RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming have shown chronic overcrowding, lack of adequate water and food, excessive heat and cold, lack of ventilation and almost always no qualified veterinary assistance,’ explains TV presenter Selina Scott (pictured below), who, along with Joanna Lumley, animal welfare campaigner Celia Hammond, former BBC news anchor Jan Leeming and various MPs, has launched a campaign to ban all live exports as soon as the UK leaves the EU.
‘Animals that died due to the horrendous conditions were simply tossed overboard’
Philip Lymbery, head of British charity Compassion in World Farming, says the whole system is ‘stuck in a rut’.
‘We are giving business to Continental abattoirs, so the trade is not just horribly cruel, we’re also sending jobs abroad,’ he continues. ‘Middle Eastern countries have the idea that fresher meat is better, but with refrigerated lorries and ships, meat can be exported freshly.’
Back in 1996, 67,488 sheep died when their ship caught fire in the Indian Ocean – 21 years later, the problem persists and it’s global. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of live animals, trading some three million a year to the Middle East and South-East Asia.
The EU exports two million farm animals a year. Last year, investigators found that thousands of cattle – including unweaned calves – were being transported thousands of miles from Eastern Europe to Israel, Gaza and the Middle East, on rust-bucket vessels. Animals that died due to the horrendous conditions were simply tossed overboard.
New Zealand has already set the lead; it banned the transport of live animals across borders for slaughter in 2007. Shouldn’t we follow this example?
Visit https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/170885 to sign the petition: if it garners 10,000 signatures, the Government will respond; 100,000 and the issue will be considered for debate in the Commons.
Carla Carlisle is tempted to hunker down and shut the world out for the next four years – but she won't. Here's why.
Let me say from the start that I don’t believe that readers are more socially competent and personally effective, more self-reliant and trustworthy, less likely to go to pieces under stress, more moral and kinder than people who read only Twitter, text messages and street signs.
I do tend to think that readers are more likely to be able to communicate their ideas and ideals. Indeed, they are more likely to have ideals and convictions that come from experience, but are honed from books. Some books are good, some are great, some disappointing, some trashy, some unforgettable. Books, like life, are a lottery but, as a recent US president admitted, in his sometimes lonely youth, they were ‘worlds that were portable’. Books were the companions that helped him to figure out who he was, what he thought and what was important.
My belief in and love of books may be wildly disproportionate to the important things in life, but I reckon my indebtedness to the printed word is only exceeded by my debt to my parents for giving me the DNA of a bookworm. They were both readers in a dry state where the only bookshop was the Baptist Bookstore in a town 85 miles away.
Like the bourbon they also enjoyed, books had to be acquired in New Orleans and from the Book of the Month Club. The town library was a peaceable kingdom, but the librarians were self-made censors who withheld books they judged ‘not quite right’, which meant anything by John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway. I was saved by Louisa May Alcott, who revealed to me that there were two sides to the Civil War.
“I’ll miss the President who gives his daughter a Kindle filled with books he wants to share with her. I’ll miss the President who said that Shakespeare’s plays show the human condition.”
Times are turbulent enough without inflicting another diatribe on my faithful readers, so I may be pushing my luck when I suggest that new American President’s gravest flaw, perhaps the origin of all his flaws, is that he does not read. I wasn’t surprised to learn that he hadn’t made his way through a book from start to finish since high school. Then came the revelation from Marie Brenner in Vanity Fair, verified by ghost-writers, ex-wives and fastidious fact-checkers, that on Donald Trump’s bedside table (to be fair, in the bedside drawer) was a volume of Hitler’s speeches.
Wherever you stand on the political divide, this is a heck more troubling than a refusal to produce tax returns.
At times in my life, I have used books to shut out the real world. I’ll always be grateful that my drug of choice during adolescence was literature: Daphne du Maurier, Sinclair Lewis (Main Street’s Carol Kennicott made me a lifelong idealist, but also determined not to live my life in Gopher Prairie).
Somewhere between Middlemarch and The Golden Notebook, I decided my spiritual home was England, but it was the 19th-century Romantics who got me here: an assignment to write a television series based on their exhilarating, rebellious, melancholy and brave lives. I am forever grateful to Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley and Coleridge.
“Tempting as it is to spend the next four years hunkered down, reading books on my bedside table that have got stuck there and re-reading old friends that make me feel better, I know that this is no time to retreat”
If it was English literature that gave me the ‘nose’ and the instincts of a gun dog that follows the wild turkey across the swamp, it was Southern literature that I turned to once I lived in England. When you are a child of the Mississippi Delta, Faulkner’s fictionalised county Yoknapatawpha (the accent is on ‘taw’; it’s a Chickasaw Indian word meaning ‘water runs slow through flat land’) was too close in time and place to reality. Now that I live in the flatlands of East Anglia, reading Eudora Welty is like waking up in my own bed after a long journey.
My ‘Desert Island’ book would be the Library of America volume of Welty’s novels. It includes her masterpiece, The Optimist’s Daughter, the story of a young woman who rediscovers the world of her Southern childhood when she returns home to be with her dying father. When I first read it, I couldn’t understand the ‘optimism’ of a father who would leave the family home to his new young wife and not his daughter. It took a second reading, years later, to see that his legacy to his daughter was an understanding of the meaning of life and the values that were formed and nourished inside the house.
Critics of Obama accused him of being aloof, too intellectual. Those critics won’t miss the poetry and the mastery of language in speeches that evoked the King James Bible, Shakespeare, the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. I will miss the optimism that comes from a view of the world that attaches the mule of language to the wagon of history. I’ll miss the President who gives his daughter a Kindle filled with books he wants to share with her. I’ll miss the President who said that Shakespeare’s plays show the human condition entire: ‘its follies, cruelties, and mad blunders, but also its resilience, decencies and acts of grace.’
Tempting as it is to spend the next four years hunkered down, reading books on my bedside table that have got stuck there and re-reading old friends that make me feel better, I know that this is no time to retreat to the shelter of my world that only allows entry to the likeminded. More than ever, now is the time to challenge the all-pervasive, dystopian view of the world—everything is terrible and will only get worse—that frightens voters and makes them crazy.
I think it is my (our) job to preach the gospel of optimism (even on days it feels deluded). These are the good old days—they’re the only days we’ve got. It is history, written plays, novels, poetry, even Country Life, that teaches us to hope.
Water runs slow through flat land, but keep faith. And keep reading.
Monday 6 February marks the 65th anniversary of the day Her Majesty The Queen acceded to the throne.
Queen Elizabeth’s father, George VI, died after a long illness exactly 65 years ago today.
That meant the young Princess Elizabeth came to the throne in sad circumstances, having lost her much-beloved father at the age of just 25.
In that light, there is a lovely touch in the official portrait of The Queen shared by the Royal Family on Monday morning: her majesty is pictured wearing sapphire jewellery given to her by her father back in 1947.
Today marks The Queen's #SapphireJubileeIt has been 65 years since Her Majesty acceded to the throne.On 6 February…
The Queen and her father had a very strong relationship with the man she called “papa”, and a candid photograph taken of the pair in 1942 shows George VI talking through affairs with the daughter he knew would one day replace him as monarch.
11th April 1942: Princess Elizabeth talking to her father, King George VI whilst he goes through the Royal boxes in a study at Windsor Castle, Berkshire.
Ten years later, the King died of cancer while the young princess was on a visit to Kenya in his place.
Though Elizabeth officially became the monarch in February 1952, her coronation didn’t take place until June of the following year.
When George V changed the family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor during the First World War, it proved a masterstroke for the monarchy. Clive Aslet reports on the evolution of the House of Windsor – through George V, Edward VIII and George VI to Elizabeth II – in its centenary year.
When the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas became the Windsors
The name was inspired. Windsor – a new house for the Royal Family that instantly evoked the permanence and pageantry of a castle. A century on, the choice of patronymic seems more appropriate than ever.
Arguably, despite the World Wars, the loss of empire and a social revolution, the Royal Family looks more secure than it did in 1917, the year that George V personally vetoed the government proposal that his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II, should be given asylum in Britain in case the monarchy here suffered the same fate as the Romanovs.
Windsor Castle
Tradition and romance, service and ceremony – these qualities, instantly evoked by the image of Windsor Castle, have provided the family that bears its name with what has mostly been an impregnable mystique.
Inspiration was not generally George V’s stock in trade. A younger son who didn’t expect to become king until his elder brother, the Duke of Clarence (‘Eddy’), died in 1892, he was happiest as a sailor and country gentleman.
He had no intellectual or artistic pursuits, hated public appearances and, for the first 15 years of his reign (until his mother’s death), was happy to forego the big house at Sandringham in favour of York Cottage, where he lived hugger-mugger with his family and attendant footmen.
HG. Wells, who complained of ‘an alien and uninspiring Court’, noted the lack of panache, to which the King responded: ‘I may be uninspiring, but I’ll be damned if I’m an alien.’ To prove as much, he rebranded the family.
The need for a change, precipitated by a German bomber
The decision to do so in 1917 might seem surprising, but may have been fired by two events of that year. In March, London was bombed by the newly commissioned Gotha G.IV – a name that focused public attention on the King’s Germanic roots – and on March 15, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, ending the Russian monarchy.
Until then, there had seemed no need for change. To the despair of his courtiers, the King shared many of the austerities of the First World War with his people. Always a thrifty housekeeper, Queen Mary scrimped with zeal.
The Foreign Secretary A. J. Balfour’s private secretary recorded the dread with which courtiers left the luxury of their own tables to face ‘the Spartan regime of the Royal household’. When late for breakfast, an equerry, who had ordered a boiled egg, was reprimanded by the King, who implied that such gluttony might lose Britain the war.
For the duration of the hostilities, the King, a stickler for correct dress, ordered no new clothes other than khaki, in which he tirelessly reviewed troops, bestowed decorations and visited factories and hospitals.
Surely his patriotism was beyond question? Besides, the conflict had already been raging for three years. As soon as war had been declared in 1914, pork butcher’s shops with Germanic names had been looted and, according to Graham Greene, dachshunds stoned to death in Berkhamstead.
Although the composer Holst didn’t finally abandon the noble particle, to which his branch of the family was never really entitled, until September 1918, other people with foreign names had been quick to change them or leave the country. In Russia, St Petersburg became Petrograd in 1914.
Admittedly, the King’s predicament was more difficult. Although his surname was popularly presumed to be Saxe-Coburg- Gotha, even genealogists were not sure that it was not Wettin (the Prince Consort’s patronymic) or Guelf (that of the House of Hanover).
It was Lord Stamfordham, the King’s private secretary, still writing memos in the large script favoured by typewriter-hating Queen Victoria as her sight failed, who proposed the happy solution of Windsor.
The Kaiser cracks a joke; nobody in Britain laughs
The proclamation announcing the new name on July 17 gave the Kaiser the opportunity to make a rare joke: he hoped he would soon see a production of that charming operetta ‘The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg- Gotha’. However, nobody in Britain heard him. Like other constitutional innovations, the House of Windsor quickly became so established as to seem immemorial.
George V did not have the easy affability of his father, Edward VII, or son, Edward VIII, but neither did he share their weaknesses for loose living and controversial relationships. As his biographer, Kenneth Rose, comments, few in 1910 could have regarded his accession ‘with enthusiasm, or even confidence’.
King George V of Great Britain (1865 – 1936) preparing to give a radio broadcast from a room at Sandringham House, circa 1933.
By his death in 1936, however, this diffident, dull monarch had shown himself to be well suited to the needs of his people.
Although an arch-conservative by temperament, he was sufficiently flexible – and sensitive to constitutional protocol – to force Lloyd George’s People’s Budget through Parliament by threatening to flood the House of Lords with new peers in 1911.
When the Great Depression began to bite, he volunteered a 10% cut in his Civil List allocation and urged the Labour leader Ramsay Macdonald to form a national government, uniting the parties. Under this first embodiment of the House of Windsor, the British Empire reached its largest geographical extent.
His Silver Jubilee of 1935 was celebrated with fêtes, pageants, church services, sports days, decorated toffee tins and – needless to say, given His Majesty’s passion for philately – commemorative stamps. In faraway Timmins, in north-east Ontario, Canada, a three-mile-long parade of floats was mounted. According to the local paper, this demonstrated the extent to which ‘the love of Britain’s flag and Britain’s King, the emblems of an Empire’s sincere efforts for freedom, democracy [and] progress’ were enshrined in the hearts of the different people of the town, wherever they came from originally.
The House of Windsor has been at its best when following George V’s example. It might have been thought that Edward VIII’s appeal was more modern and better suited to the times – although his father had doggedly maintained the formality of the Edwardian court, the new King hated its stuffiness and rigidity.
Away from the turmoil of the Second World War, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth walk in a field with their daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret (right).
Having been rapturously received on his visits to the USA, he enjoyed the freedom of American life: he remodelled Fort Belvedere as a British equivalent of the homes he had seen on Long Island: convenient, modern, designed for a life of sport and pleasure, based around what George V called ‘those damn weekends’.
His playboy charm won him many admirers in the age of the Hollywood matinee idol, but his father’s dire prediction that he would come to ruin within a year proved all too correct. His love of twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, the latest of a line of American girlfriends, caused him to abdicate after just 11 months.
The title, by which he was then known, Duke of Windsor, gave a prominence to the new family name that his father could never have expected. The Scottish Labour MP George Hardie said that the abdication crisis did ‘more for republicanism than 50 years of propaganda’. The House of Windsor was shaken.
11th April 1942: Princess Elizabeth talking to her father, King George VI whilst he goes through the Royal boxes in a study at Windsor Castle, Berkshire.
The radiant young queen who proved the perfect tonic
George VI, who succeeded to the throne, was another younger brother.
That was not the only quality that he shared with George V. Like him, he was modest in his domestic tastes and loved family life. Although his father’s horror of the First World War had caused him to develop an unexpected degree of pacifism by the end of his life, his son also found himself to be a war leader: his behaviour during the Second World War was much the same as George V’s had been in 1914–18. He and Queen Elizabeth set an example of fortitude, duty and self-denial.
After the Second Word War, the monarchy was prime among the institutions having to adapt to Indian independence and the loss of empire. The arrival of Elizabeth II to the throne in 1952 gave both the nation and the monarchy the tonic that they needed.
Here was a radiant young Queen who personified the country’s new destiny as it began the difficult process of reinvention.
By February 6 2017, the anniversary of her accession, she had provided stability for 65 years, during sometimes gloomy and fractious times. A natural conservative, she adopted the idea of monarchy pioneered by George V – whom she called ‘Grandpa England’ – and developed by George VI, combining iron duty with devotion to family and an uncomplicated religious faith.
Queen Elizabeth II’s first-ever Christmas message, made from Sandringham
From the accession to the annus horribilis
Is the House of Windsor still a castle? Castles are designed to keep people out.
One of the challenges of a reign that has coincided with a media explosion – and an ever more scandal-mongering press – has been to manage access to the Royal Family’s inner life. Early experiments in raising the portcullis proved unsatisfactory: glimpses of what lay behind the curtain walls merely encouraged a greater degree of intrusiveness.
It may have seemed that the castle had been stormed altogether when Her Majesty suffered her ‘annus horribilis’ of 1992, when The Princess Royal divorced, Prince Andrew separated from his wife and Prince Charles’s marital difficulties erupted into the War of the Waleses. Clearly, structures that the early 20th century had erected were no longer serviceable in an age that had seen so much change, not least among the landed families whose way of life had once been similar to the royals. The fire that gutted the state apartments of Windsor Castle in 1992 seemed alarmingly symbolic.
The castle was rebuilt, however, and the House of Windsor has come into the 21st century in the same condition as Britain’s great country houses. Once they were written off as impractical, but a new generation has found ways of converting them to modern needs. Metaphorically, more informal living spaces have been created: grandeur can be laid on for those occasions when it is needed, but, at other times, the younger occupants can pursue lives that resemble those of other members of their set.
Today’s Windsors
This can no longer be a castle in the conventional sense because no ramparts are strong enough to keep out the digital age, but then the life pursued inside this house, by its younger representatives, does not seem as strange or remote as that of half a century ago. Even so, the House of Windsor maintains the sense of otherness that is essential to its survival as the mechanism for providing the head of state.
It is a mansion with many rooms, expensive at times to heat. Eventually, wings may be closed, as it is realised that not all the members of a spreading family are required for public duties. These are matters for the future. The Prince of Wales is increasingly assuming more of the responsibilities previously shouldered by his mother: for the first time in the history of the House of Windsor, it will be represented by a champion of architecture. In a sometimes shoddy world, it will continue to express the vitruvian qualities of Firmness, Commodity and Delight.
Flowers? Boring. Chocolates? Pfft. Push the boat out this year.
If… money is no object
And why should it ever be, compared to the value of love? Admittedly, however, this option might push all but the best-heeled a little too far since it comes in at £250,000. But the experience it offers – dreamt up by the former Royal Yacht Britannia with a bit of help from Scottish jeweller Hamilton & Inches – is arguably the ultimate Valentine experience.
It starts with a private jet flight to Edinburgh, after which you’ll be chauffeur-driven to Britannia itself in a Rolls Royce for a 10-course meal for two with paired wines chosen by the Britannia’s sommelier. After dinner you’ll be breezed back in the Roller for a night in the Balmoral Hotel, back in the centre.
We know what you’re thinking: what’s a girl to wear for a night like that? Well, the dress is up to you, but the jewellery is taken care of: the package includes a Hamilton & Inches diamond necklace, earrings and cuff bracelet featuring some 660 diamonds. Book on +44 (0) 131 555 8800 or www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk.
If… you want to say it with pastry
Well, here’s one that he or she won’t expect. Dickinson & Morris, Britain’s longest-established makers of Melton Mowbray pork pies, are offering these rather delicious looking pork pies with a pair of hearts on top.
It might not be everyone’s idea of romance, but for those who love this great British food tradition it’s a real giggle. These extra-large pies (each one is 800g, or almost two pounds) cost £9 plus delivery, and come with a hand-written note from the baker who creates yours. Order by midday on Friday for Valentine’s Day delivery at the Dickinson & Morris website.
If… you want a walk in the country
Is there any better feeling than, after a strenuous climb, standing atop a hill, breathing the crisp, cool air right to the bottom of your lungs and gazing out at rolling country below? Of course not, so share the moment with a loved one. Get yourself to Brimham Rocks in North Yorkshire, where you can explore the labyrinth of paths that meander through the weird, wonderful and higgledy-piggledy formations.
After the walk settle down on a perfect-picnic rock and sit down for a heavenly feast (hot Thermos of tea or coffee recommended) and God-worthy views over Nidderdale.
If… you want a gift to keep forever
Perfectly-timed for Valentine’s Day, Sotheby’s is running an auction dedicated to erotic art for the first time in its history on February 16. More details and images (if you’re feeling daring, and aren’t on a computer at work) available are on the Sotheby’s website, but there’s a terrific selection from sculpture and traditional paintings to more modern things such as the Mel Ramos pop art images here, which are estimated to fetch £5,000 to £7,000.
If… you fancy a sightseeing tour with a difference
Why not take the apple of your eye on a helicopter tour of London? He or she can see the capital like as never seen before, as you swoop dramatically from Tower Bridge to Chelsea along the river.
Prices with The London Helicopter start at £150 per person for a short buzz over the city, but for Valentine’s Day you’ll no doubt want the entire chopper to yourself – that’ll set you back £750.
If… you want to re-live memories in a special place
A romantic walk in a special place is always a winner on Valentine’s Day, but here’s a great idea to cap it off: a cardboard box which turns your phone into a miniature projector.
This £22 gizmo from the National Theatre Bookshops is marketed as a way to take a movie with you anywhere you like, and it’d work brilliantly like that… but we can’t help thinking that it’d make the perfect way to work out some sort of proposal video for Valentine’s Day.
If… you want a card they didn’t see in the shop themselves
If the selection in WH Smith isn’t quite hitting the spot for you, try stationery brand Papier. Their selection has all sorts of funny and clever designs which, to our minds, strike a lovely note between affection and whimsy. Plus, they can be customised and delivered next day.
And finally, if… you forgot all about it and are reading this article on February 15
You could do worse than try out the nicely-named ‘Doghouse Bouquet’ from Bloom & Wild. It will consist of two dozen roses of various colours – which is both a nice way to apologise, and a clever way for a florist to offload all those unsold flowers they have left over…
An urgent campaign has been launched by the National Trust to raise £250,000 to repair Snowdonia National Park’s broken paths and restore its wildlife habitats, after a recent review revealed the scale of erosion.
More than four million people visit Snowdonia every year, with 450,000 walking up Snowdon alone – a number that has doubled in the past 10 years.
Although the repairs will only focus on two and half miles of path – it costs £180 to repair just one metre – they are vital and rangers stress the need to start work immediately in order to protect rare wildlife, such as the endangered Snowdon beetle.
‘Snowdonia isn’t as tough as it first appears,’ says National Trust ranger Rhys Thomas.
‘When [footpaths] break up and turn into mud, it can be incredibly difficult to know where to step.
‘Delicate upland habitats are being flattened, making it impossible for ring ouzels nesting on the ground along Snowdon’s Watkin Path to find insects to feed their chicks.
‘We are asking all those who admire and enjoy the beauty of Snowdonia to help us repair the paths that will keep Snowdonia looking spectacular for many years to come’
‘I’ve been building and rebuilding paths in the area for eight years. It’s tiring, time-consuming work, involving tens of volunteers shifting tons of stone by hand, vehicle and helicopter.
‘But it’s vital if we want to protect the delicate upland habitats that make Snowdonia a special place for wildlife.
‘If there’s no path or it’s in poor condition, walkers inevitably stray onto the heather and vegetation. Then you’re left with bare patches of ground and that’s when the thuggish grasses start to move in – eventually strangling out the more delicate plants such as purple saxifrage, moss campion and roseroot.
‘We are asking all those who admire and enjoy the beauty of Snowdonia to help us repair the paths that will keep Snowdonia looking spectacular for many years to come.’
The 'Party at The Palace' will honour the children of those who have died serving in the Armed Forces.
Britain's Prince William, Kate Catherine Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry pose for photograph at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in central London
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry will host a tea party in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, to honour the children of those who have died serving in the Armed Forces.
The ‘Party at The Palace’ will take place on 13th May and, according to their statement, “will be a fun and family focused event featuring live performances, various stalls, games on the lawn and the chance to explore the gardens.”
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry have arranged the event as a way to acknowledge and honour the fact that a number of young children have had to come to terms with the loss of someone very close to them at a young age.
The party will also be attended by a number of charities which help support families, and specifically children dealing with bereavement, including Child Bereavement UK. The charity, which supports families coping with a child’s death and helps children facing bereavement, was launched by Princess Diana and is now one of the Duke of Cambridge’s key causes.
Earlier this year, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited a Child Bereavement UK centre in London as the site celebrated its one year anniversary.
The Prince sat with a young girl, who had lost her father to pancreatic cancer. He spoke to her about dealing with the loss, and opened up about his experience of losing his mother. Prince William was only 15 years old when Diana, Princess of Wales, died in an accident in Paris in 1997, while his younger brother Harry was 12.
The 2017 Game Fair takes place at Hatfield House in July, and Country Life will be there.
As the largest outdoor countryside-themed event in the world, The Game Fair is expected to attract around 120,000 visitors and 1,000 exhibitors at the beautiful Hatfield House in Hertfordshire across three days from Friday 28 to Sunday 30 July.
Time Inc. UK, the publisher of Country Life, has formed a partnership with The Game Fair that is set to benefit our readers with exclusive packages and special ticket offers.
In addition, Country Life will be the media partner for The Village Green, an area featuring cricket matches, large TV screens, Tiptree gin bar and cream teas, deckchairs and picnics.
Several of our sister publications will also be involved. Historic fieldsports monthly The Field is set to be the media partner for the new-look Cookery Theatre. Much-loved weekly Horse & Hound is now the media partner for the Equestrian Ring and Show Jumping Series. Shooting Times will focus on The Game Fair’s unrivalled shopping opportunities by showcasing new products in a special supplement.
Managing director of Time Inc. UK’s Fieldsports Group, Hazel Eccles, commented: “It is my pleasure to announce that we are partnering with The Game Fair. Our iconic brands play such a crucial part in the lives of the fieldsports and country community, this partnership offers a great platform and we are very much looking forward to the event in July.”
The Game Fair’s managing director James Gower added: “Historically, Time Inc. UK’s titles have always had a strong relationship with the event so we are delighted to announce this new partnership for 2017. Their readers are at the beating heart of the fieldsports fraternity so it makes complete sense for the brands to align.”
The River Itchen and surrounding areas in Hampshire are under threat by a new development.
River Itchen at Winchester
In Hampshire, the council at Eastleigh is considering a plan to put 6,300 homes on green fields, served by a bypass squeezed between two ancient protected woodlands once used by King John.
Equally serious is that the bypass will intrude on and then cross the River Itchen, which enjoys the EU’s highest level of protection as a Special Area of Conservation.
The Itchen is world famous as a classic chalkstream and conservation organisations are livid, particularly the Woodland Trust (which owns the key woods) and the CPRE.
A local campaign group, Action Against Destructive Development — who have dubbed themselves ADD’s Army (www.add-eastleigh.org) — advocates more sustainable development options.
The scheme is opposed by three local Tory MPs and a Green Party MEP, Keith Taylor. The EU fine for damaging a Special Area of Conservation could be about €40 million (£34.2 million).
The Government stated recently that ancient woodlands should be as protected as green fields.
Graham Mole
The River Itchen is renowned for its world-class trout fishing, especially during mayfly season
With Spring officially starting this week, we've rounded up some magnificent images from the Country Life Picture Library.
The Country Life Picture Library is home to beautiful and extraordinary images chronicling the last century, from country house architecture to the changing streets of our villages and nature.
So where better to look for some beautiful pictures of Britain in springtime? Here are some of our favourite spring images that have appeared in Country Life over the last few years.
Blossom is one of the first indicators that spring is on its way.
March hares boxing are an iconic image of springtime in Britain.
Buds begin to appear as we look forward to more colour in the garden.
Of course daffodils are always a cheery sight after the dull winter colours.
Regents Park in London looks particularly spectacular in Spring
Blue skies and daffodils… well, we can count on the daffodils being out at least!
A new exhibition at Wordsworth House is trying to keep alive some of the rural idioms which are fast-disappearing.
A new photography exhibition at the childhood home of Lake District poet William Wordsworth celebrates the dying dialect of Britain’s landscape.
‘The Word-Hoard: Love letters to Our Land’ has been curated by award-winning nature writer Robert Macfarlane. It follows his 2015 bestseller Landmarks, which explored the regional dialect words connected to nature, terrain and weather, and brings together 25 dramatic photographs by his parents, Rosamund and John Macfarlane – including the gorgeous image at the top of this page.
The words in Mr Macfarlane’s vocabulary include ‘shreep’, an East Anglian word for mist clearing slowly, and ‘sun-scald’, a Sussex word for a patch of bright sunlight on water.
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The world’s most famous trees
