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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL - 27.5.04

Speeches, speeches, speeches – they have been filling my life lately. I committed (and if you think that sounds like a crime – you are probably right) 3 last weeks. 2 of them were ‘presentations’ for the Countryside Alliance. The CA is now a slick and professional organisation. In 2003 it won the prestigious ‘Judges’ Award’ of the Public Relations Consultants’ Association’ for ‘overall excellence in public relations’. It has seen off 16 different anti hunting bills and has swung public opinion from being 70% against hunting in 1997 to being 59% in favour of hunting at the present time – a huge swing in PR terms. All of this in spite of much sneaky opposition by the Government and many millions of pounds spent by anti-hunting organisations on specious propaganda. Never the less, the CA realises that the war is not yet won and never will be with a Labour Government in power. Wars cost money and the CA’s war chest needs refreshing for it to fight the next parliamentary battle against hunting and against shooting and fishing, which will come as surely as night follows day. Please do not bother to write and tell me that NuLab has promised to leave shooting and fishing alone – just spend the time asking yourself how much this Government’s promises are worth – about the cost of lunch for two at the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar; served on tectonic plates.

That accounts for two of the three speeches. For the third one, I had to go to Wiltshire to speak at a dinner of the Wilton Hunt Supporters. The Wilton is a dear little hunt, which hunts the sweeping downlands south of Salisbury. I was MFH there from 1967 – 1971 and it was a very happy time for me and the Wilton’s memory of me cannot be too unhappy for it to invite me back over 30 years later. I am glad to say that the hunt is in great heart and made me hugely welcome to the extent that nearly 200 people paid £50 a plate to come and listen to me. It was inevitable that a lot of my old and dear friends have been ‘gathered’, but there were enough left to remind me of things that I am sure I never did – I suppose that is how myths are formed. Anyway it was a great evening and, yes, I did sing – well, they asked me too for the sake of ‘auld lang syne’ and for the amount of whisky they had invested in me (considerable). The Wiltshire Downs are now an intensive arable area but at one time they were all open ‘sheep walk’ and my old Hunt Chairman (now long dead) told me that when he was a child he could ride his pony from Martin Village to Stone Henge (a distance of some 15 miles) on virgin downland and without ever having to open a gate. The only remaining sweeps of old downland are preserved by the Army on the Bulford Ranges, which only goes to reinforce my belief that the Army is not only a fighting force but is one of our great forces for true conservation. It was a truly happy visit for me and full of happy memories. My sincere gratitude goes to all my hosts.

I had a visit from Border TV last week. It wanted my views on us joining the Greater Europe. I am agin it. The idea of a United Europe was the dream of Charlemagne, then of Napoleon, then of Hitler and the French Fascists. Now the French and the Germans are at it again, aided and abetted by British Quislings, who have lied, schemed and plotted to get us to join. In 1975, I voted for a COMMON MARKET, which I am still in favour of. I have never, ever voted for a Political Union and I have never, ever forgiven that old toad Ted Heath who plotted, schemed and lied through his dreadful teeth to get us in. I remind you of his statement that the EU would never have any more power than an English County Council –one of the great Porkies of our time. I am told that we pay £30 million a day to Brussels. Most of this goes to help the Irish to live way up there where the pig is fat. Would it not be better larding that money on our own people, instead of helping to fill the European trough for the Beauroos to guzzle? I think that come the European Election, I may well vote for UKIP to try and get some of our swill back. As for Regional Assemblies – they would just be another rip off and another fattening unit for local politicians and bureaucrats – a complete waste of rations, whichever way you look at it.

My contempt for T.Blair is absolute, but strangely enough I do not want to lose him, as the alternative might be 'Brown of the Manse'. I am told that he is a good example of ‘Asperger’s Syndrome’. The symptoms of this disease are an unassailable belief in your own rectitude and being ‘impulsive, rude and socially disorientated.’ I could not put if better myself. The man is obviously bonkers, so remember the old saw: “Always keep good hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse.” – Better Contemptible Blair than Bonkers Brown – better still, bin them both.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL - 20.5.04

There can be no doubt that the great advances in electronic services are a ‘Good Thing’ – everybody tells us so, so it must be true. Why then are they such a bloody nuisance and reduce most of us to a state of gibbering impotence and an explosion of barrack room language. How I hate telephoning a company and being told to press a succession of buttons, or ‘wait for an operator’. If the operator is sitting there all the time, painting her toenails, or whatever, why on earth can the wretched woman not just answer the telephone in the first place? And no, I do not wish to be told that ‘my call is valuable to them’ and spend the next ten minutes listening to soothing music. Dammit! That time is valuable to ME – I could have been painting MY toenails. The other day I had to make a speech in rural Oxfordshire and the sensible thing to do seemed to be to fly to Heathrow. This was a bad idea. At least it reminded me of the reason why I resist the urge to fly – quite simply it is because Airports are so absolutely ghastly – they are inefficient and full of the Great British Travelling Public in all it total ghastliness. It was a lunchtime flight so BA gave us a ‘light snack’, which is a euphemism for a stale soggy bun - quite inedible. I was therefore gruntled when my kind host produced packets of delicious sandwiches and a flask of whisky. We sat on the tailboard of his vehicle in the car park of Terminal 1 and ate our picnic as we cracked away about this and that. The result of this pleasant interlude was that the electronic exit barrier refused to accept his ticket and had to be opened manually by a helpful attendant. On the next day, I made the return journey. There was a queue for check-in and a kind lady suggested that I did an electronic check-in via a bank of slot machines. The slot machine devoured my credit card and refused to return it. A man with a screwdriver was summoned. He disembowelled the machine and retrieved my card from the machine’s lower intestines. He was a nice man and offered to do my check-in for me on another machine. This machine denied all knowledge of my booking, but did have the grace to return my card. By this time I would have been at the head of the queue, but the nice lady slipped me round a corner to an empty check-in desk where another nice lady was busy doing her manicure and checking-in nothing. I had time to smoke a pipe, which BA regards as a filthy and perverted habit and makes plain its opinion by its smoking area – a filthy and dimly lit corner, with torn seats and precious few of them. At least my pipe is not electronic.

I was about to sit down to breakfast this morning, when the telephone rang to tell me that Mother had smashed her car up and some poor old gadgy had been taken to hospital. I knew that she had gone to Mass in Wooler and I was worried in case she had experienced a Papist Revelation (having OD -ed on incense) and had started on a total motorised immolation of all the Protestants in Wooler. In fact she had not been involved at all - she had been on her knees praying for all her ‘manifold sins and wickedness’ although come to think of it – that is the Cranmer Prayer Book, so perhaps not – but she had the perfect alibi. Her car was sitting quietly beside the road, when an elderly man had come along and driven straight into the back of it, for no apparent reason – just one of those crumbs in the crumpled bed sheet of life. So we have a car-less Granny, which, knowing her electronic temperament is not a happy prospect.

I have lived in this area for nigh on a quarter of a century. The full flowering of the whins, which comes at this time of year, has been a never failing source of pleasure, but never have I seen such a wonderful display as this year has produced. The hillsides are a mass of old gold. Take a drive, or much better a walk, up the Ingram Valley. You will be amazed by the colours and the smell. My old Grandmother always used to say:

“When gorse is out of bloom, kissing’s out of season.” It is a happy fact for those of us whose pulses still race on occasion, that whatever the season or the weather you will never find a patch of whins without a flower on it somewhere. By the same token, sour, prickly, old cynic that I am, there is never an occasion when I do not welcome a kiss from a pretty woman – so please feel free to indulge yourselves.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL - 12.5.04

Once again the poor old peasant (of which I am one) gets the sand filled sock behind the ear. In our shopping area we only have one rather down at heel branch of a national chain of supermarkets. I will name no names because the Journal is rather twitchy about that sort of thing. This is especially so as I feel that we peasants are being ripped off by this particular firm. I happen to know that many of the larger urban branches of the chain have filling stations attached, which offer customers cut price petrol. Our local branch has no such facility. You might think that, in view of this, there might be some discounting of the prices in store for rural customers. This does not appear to be the case. What follows from this is that rural customers (whose incomes are lower and whose costs are higher - it is a 25 mile round trip to our supermarket) are, in effect, subsidising the shopping costs of our wealthier 'Toony' compatriots. You may like to think that this is unfair - I certainly do, but supermarkets don't 'do' fairness. They have no compunction in screwing down both their suppliers and their customers, especially when (as in our local situation) there is no effective competition. There was talk of another chain building a large out-of-town store - the town was for it, the council was for it, but that great champion of rural affairs, J. Prescott was agin it and stopped it. This is the man, you may remember, who requires a second Jag to carry his wife's hair in. I wonder who pays for his petrol?

I keep getting Emails from an African happie, or rather several African chappies. The names are different but the letter is much the same. He, or They, has a large amount of money (cash) hidden in his, or their, netty and he, or they, seeks my good offices and the use of my bank account to slip this money out of their country. It seems that his Government does not think that he should have it. He is quite prepared for a reasonable percentage to stick to the sides of my bank account, as the rest slides through. I am a bear of very little brain, but even I can figure that the sort of person who has the nous to 'save' this amount of money from the government petty cash box does not place his affairs in the hands of a total stranger and one who is a total financial Pratt at that. In spite of that, I am always intrigued by the offer, but not so intrigued that I do not do what I always do and delete the Email.

Look! Look! There it is! Oh, whoopee! The Great Mr Whillis is our chimney sweep and he has come to sweep the chimney. We only have one chimney and it gets gunged up very quickly. Mr Whillis says that the flue is too narrow and the quality of the coal too poor - this results in the drawing room oft resembling a smoke house and having to open the windows in mid winter - conditions not conducive…Oh Look! There's the brush again! … To the pleasures of book and pipe. So Mr Whillis is a frequent and welcome visitor. As a child I remember the visit of the sweep was a great occasion and I was always sent outside to watch for the appearance of the brush. It is nice to think one can still enjoy such simple pleasures.
I remember years ago in Yorkshire, when we were out hound exercise one early summer morning. We were passing an ancient farmhouse, which I happened to know had one of the huge old fashioned fireplaces, where the blackened kettle always hung on the crook, when suddenly a great black mushroom cloud appeared out of the top of the chimney followed by a pillar of thick black smoke:
"Good Heavens!" I said to Bernard, my completely unflappable Kennel Huntsman - "should we try to get the Fire Brigade?"

Bernard smiled: "Nay - they're only cleaning t'chimney." It seems that it was the custom in some of these old houses to promote a catharsis of the chimney by setting fire to it. I would not fancy this method. It has happened all to often in our chimney by accident. This involves the swift arrival of the excellent Wooler Fire Brigade and the consumption of a bottle of whisky. Another method of cleaning these old chimneys was to send a boy up them (they usually had steps built in for this purpose). The problem could also be tackled from the top, by dropping a goose down them. The bird's frantic flapping, on its way down, would loosen all the soot. However, our flue is far too narrow to allow the downward passage of a goose, even if we had one, which we don't. Nor would the flue permit us to prod a modern chip-butty fed youth up it. Both methods might lead to legal unpleasantness in these enlightened times. We shall continue to welcome the cheerful arrival of Mr Whillis.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL – 6.5.04

I suspect that very few readers have seen a lekk (or lek – take your pick). There are good reasons for this – they happen at first light, in remote places in the hills and they are becoming worryingly rare. The reason for this is that a lekk is the courting ritual of the Black Grouse. This handsome bird is also becoming worryingly rare. There are thought to be only about 6,000 breeding males left in Britain, whereas at one time 500 brace a season were regularly shot on some Moors. The reason for this decline is, of course, Man. Over the years, Man has increasingly buggered up the habitat of the Black Grouse. It is a bird of the heather moor and rough woodland edges. Since the Kaiser War, hundreds of thousands of acres of upland habitat have disappeared under a blanket of Sitka Spruce, planted in strict rectangular blocks. The heather moorland has been decreased by poor management. There has been a large increase in the fencing of the uplands. Black Grouse are birds of very little brain and it is estimated that 11% of the Black Grouse are killed by fence collision. 6% are eaten by foxes (these figures are from the Game Conservancy), whilst the wicked little stoats get 28%. By far the largest tranche of mortality (44%) is blamed on ‘Birds of prey’, although it is interesting to note that these are not mentioned by the RSPB, in its blurb. The other unmentionable is the damage caused by the explosion in the Badger population. Badgers hoover up the eggs of all ground nesting birds, but we must not mention that fact – Badgers are cuddly and have big, brown eyes.

The main areas where the Black Grouse population maintains a tenuous hold are the Highlands of Scotland and Northumberland. A few hang on in the Pennines and in N.Wales

The cock BG is a handsome fellow – shiny black with red eyebrows, a white bar along his wings and a white ruff under his tail feathers, which fork outwards and used to appear as a ‘hackle’ in the bonnets of some Highland Regiments. The hen, by contrast, is a plain little thing. Although know as a ‘Greyhen’, she is in fact a mottled brown in colour. This is a fine camouflage and is her only protection, when sitting, from the sharp eyes of circling Corbies and Raptors. I very nearly stepped on a sitting Greyhen once, so well concealed as she was. The hiker’s boot is another of the great dangers to ground nesting birds that may not be mentioned. It is the absence of the hiker that makes military ranges such havens for wildlife.

As with most living creatures, courtship is a necessary preliminary to procreation. The male must make a display to attract the favours of the female. Humans ‘go clubbing’ – Black Grouse have a ‘lekk’. I was very gruntled to be invited by the admirable Game Conservancy to view a lekk on the Otterburn Ranges. I told the nice PR lady who rang me that I would bet I knew where it was. She told me sternly that I was quite wrong, as the place was a closely guarded secret. I wish now that we had had an even tenner on it. It was exactly where I had thought – I had been there before. The lekk is always in a traditional place and is used year on year from time out of memory. This one is in a handy spot hard by a military road. The birds take no notice of vehicles, but romance does not flourish if you attempt a foot approach. You hear it before you see it – it is a bubbling, hissing noise, a bit like a kettle coming to the boil. The cocks gather loosely and bubble at each other. They display by spreading their wings and fanning out their tails to show the white flash. Every now and then, two cocks will square off, hiss insults and do a little sparring, but I have yet to see anything seriously physical. The object of the exercise is, of course, to pull the birds and for the cock to establish a piece of ground as his own for the consummation of the marriage. I have yet to see a Greyhen in attendance at a lekk, but I understand that they are about (they would be very hard to see) watching and waiting until they see a bloke worth having.

So that is a lekk and now for a rather sad little story. An enthusiastic member of the RSPB knew of a lekk and invited a mini busload of members to go and view it. So they drove out into the hills, but when they got there, there was not a Black Grouse to be seen – only a rather plump and shiny Goshawk sitting on a fence post. I cannot but think that there is a certain irony there.

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