IT’S the sort of fantasy guaranteed to delight weary walkers at the end of a long day on the trail…
What if you could find a cosy cottage just yards from the footpath with a comfy king-size bed, luxurious bed linen and a power shower complete with Bluetooth music and steam jets? Ah, bliss.
ALL-SINGING: the shower at Hedgerow Cottage
Throw in a freshly baked Victoria sponge and ice-cold home-made apple juice, and that’s the reassuring reality of a stay at Hedgerow Cottage, a glorious hideaway in the shadow of the ancient Ridgeway at Wainhill on the Buckinghamshire-Oxfordshire border.
JOURNEY’S END: a comfy bed and luxurious linen
Owners Katrina Rowton-Lee and husband Charlie invited us to spend a couple of days sampling their dog-friendly hideaway after spotting a recent Beyonder post about four-legged friends.
With three dogs of their own and such an impressive location in the heart of the Chilterns countryside, they’re keen to share the spot with walking enthusiasts who have a canine companion in tow and who want to spend a few days exploring the many local attractions.
HOME COOKING: the kitchen at Hedgerow
As idyllic country retreats go, Hedgerow takes some beating. It’s spotless, stylish and cosy, a purpose-built luxury cabin with wood-lined rooms decorated in rural chic style and its own kitchen, shower room and separate bedroom off the living room, complete with private garden area and parking.
BREAKFAST AL FRESCO: the view towards the ridge
It’s discreetly hidden to one side of the 17th-century thatched cottage that is Katrina and Charlie’s home, giving guests an open outlook over their own section of garden.
BELOW THE RIDGE: the Ridgeway is an ancient route
Nestled below the treeline, Wainhill comprises 20 acres of meadow and pasture which house friendly Herdwick sheep, a number of horses and an eclectic collection of classic caravans and other vintage vehicles Katrina hires out for for TV, filming, photoshoots and corporate events.
RETRO COLLECTION: one of Katrina’s caravans
One of those intriguing vehicles is Alice, Katrina’s original 1955 English Eccles caravan, which has been lovingly restored and provides Hedgerow guests with a lovely space to enjoy during the summer months, just by their front door.
TRUE ORIGINAL: Alice dates from 1955
It’s a glorious spot and perfect for trips to places like Oxford, Henley and Marlow, visiting local vineyards or exploring the Midsomer Murders trail.
Take a weekend wander along the footpath to Chinnor and you could be treated to the sight of a steam engine tootling along a restored section of the old Watlington branch line from Princes Risborough which originally closed to passengers back in 1957.
Head off in the other direction towards the treeline, and you’ll quickly discover the Ridgeway national trail, a route used since prehistoric times by travellers, herdsmen and soldiers.
ANCENT TRACK: walkers have traversed the ridge for centuries
The 87-mile national trail follows a ridge of chalk hills from Avebury in Wiltshire to Ivinghoe Beacon and from your bed at Hedgerow the ancient track is about a quarter of a mile away.
WARM WELCOME: Katrina Rowton-Lee
For those wanting to tackle a longer section of the route, it’s an indication of Katrina’s “nothing is too much trouble” approach that she will cheerfully drive walkers to a suitable starting point from which they can walk back to Wainhill, allowing them to use the Hedgerow as a central point for a few days of exploring.
TOURING BASE: routes fan out in all directions
Routes fan out from here in all directions, criss-crossing the Chilterns AONB and allowing walkers access to miles of unspoilt countryside, so often overlooked by tourists in favour of the Cotswolds.
Visitors with pets even get home-made dog biscuits and their furry friends may get the chance to rub noses with the resident pack: Tilly the yellow labrador and a pair of teckels, or working dachshunds.
FURRY FRIENDS: Wainhill is a dog-friendly destination
We saunter out of the back gate for a quick circuit up to the Ridgeway, and quickly discover it’s an immensely restful landscape and a welcome escape from city hubbub.
True, there’s a light drizzle on the weekend we visit, but it does nothing to dampen our spirits on a first brief foray up to the ridge and back, pausing only to greet the occasional dog walker or runner showing a similar disregard for the elements.
SEAT IN THE SUN: Hedgerow is ideal for walkers
But even over such a rainy October weekend it’s not long before the sun’s out for long enough to show just how relaxing the garden must be in the summer months, far away from the sound of speeding traffic or aircraft noise.
Later, as dusk falls, with only the hooting of the owls to disturb the clear evening air it’s clear we will have no problem getting a great night’s sleep in our cosy wood-lined bedroom.
SMALL TOUCHES: cake and flowers
With no light pollution, it’s also a spectacular place for stargazing, and as the clouds clear we wander outside for a little to marvel as the heavens stage a dazzling display of planets and constellations.
It’s a fitting finale to a restful stay in a lovely location where those little touches like the fresh flowers and phenomenal Victoria sponge have made all the difference, as the comments in the guest book reflect.
Accommodation is available year round – check out the Wainhill website for details and prices.
WALKING is one of the simplest forms of physical exercise there is — but for TV presenter Julia Bradbury, it’s so much more than that.
“It improves sleep, lowers anxiety, boosts brain power and even lengthens life,” she wrote in the Mail recently. “I used it to help me through the breast cancer that upended my life three years ago, as well as IVF and miscarriages, grief and mental health issues.”
PASSION FOR NATURE: Julia Bradbury PICTURE: David Venni
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Julia should take pride in being an enthusiastic evangelist for nature. Born in Dublin, she grew up in Sheffield and was introduced to walking and the power of the great outdoors by her father, Michael.
He would take her roaming across the Peak District, igniting a lifelong passion that has underpinned her career in television and more recently has grown into something of an obsession with the healing power of walking to strengthen the body and soothe the mind.
After starting her on-screen career as a showbusiness reporter for breakfast TV in Los Angeles, she came home to help launch Channel 5 in the UK and has fronted shows like Top Gear and Watchdog.
But it was as a member of the Countryfile presenting team with Matt Baker that she became nationally recognised when the relaunched series became a ratings hit, before she moved on to host a succession of shows about walking, from Cornwall and Devon to the Lake District and beyond.
FREEDOM TO ROAM: exploring the peaks PICTURE: Julia Bradbury
But while her love of walking has taken her to the furthest corners of the world over the past three decades, she says she still cherishes her little London garden and the old plane tree outside her bathroom window.
“You don’t need big landscapes or seat-of-the-pants travel adventures to benefit from ‘green therapy’,” she says.
And it’s healthy living and the virtues of nature therapy which have featured a lot in her thoughts in recent years, when she has spoken of her struggle to overcome infertility and failed IVF treatments, and of her rollercoaster emotions faced with her diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer.
She recalls how hiking in Iceland, faced with a huge vista of mountains, icy streams and steaming hillsides, made her IVF problems seem more manageable and reflects that you don’t need such dramatic views to overcome anxious thoughts: “A single tree, the sound of birdsong, a scented rose — all of these can calm us,” she says.
It may take as little as half an hour of walking in nature for our stress hormones to start dropping, and every step can contribute to our feeling of wellbeing if we take the time to savour the feel of the ground beneath our feet, the rustle of the leaves and fragrance of the plants around us.
Part memoir and part self-help guide, her latest book, Walk Yourself Happy, incorporates science-backed research, practical tips and her own experiences to examine how nature can soothe anxiety and stress, helping us to cope with grief, illness and the pressures of everyday life.
Can a mountain or tree keep us company in times of loss? The science certainly suggests that building nature into our everyday lives can help us eat, sleep and function better, and walking is one of the easiest and quickest ways for most of us to immerse ourselves in the natural world.
Past generations may have taken such bonds for granted, but as Chris Packham reminded us in Back To Nature, those connections have unravelled in parallel with our technological progress in the industrial and social revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries.
“We live in sterile modern homes, where we can’t see, hear, taste or touch it, and we drive through it in our air-conditioned cars, disconnected from it,” wrote Packham.
Julia picks up the theme in her book too, encouraging us to rekindle those ancient bonds with nature that have been all but extinguished by modern living, which in turn can encourage closer camaraderie with friends and more intimate knowledge and awareness of self.
OPEN OUTLOOK: walks can lift our spirits PICTURE: Julia Bradbury
“No matter what challenges you face, I promise there is a walk to lift your mood, even if it’s just around your local park,” she says.
It was three years after her Iceland trip that she conceived her son naturally at the age of 41, but there was still a miscarriage and four years of IVF treatment to undergo before her twin daughters arrived.
Flash forward to 2021 and a shock breast cancer diagnosis posed another emotional and physical challenge, suffusing Julia in a sudden flush of grief, not least for “that naive belief that I was invincible and everything would always be all right”.
EMOTIONAL JOURNEY: coping with cancer PICTURE: Julia Bradbury
She thought of her three young children and her eyes filled with tears. Would she live to see them grow up? And later, after her mastectomy, there was a different trauma to cope with, faced with the physical and emotional damage of the angry scarring.
But she is unequivocal about the long-term impact of the experience.
“Cancer saved my life,” she writes. “That may seem a strange thing to say, but it opened my eyes to what I was doing to myself. Before diagnosis, everything I did was at breakneck speed. I wanted it all, and pushed myself emotionally and physically to reach impossible goals.”
It’s a problem most of us can relate to, where the days, weeks and months slip by and we are distracted by false priorities.
Her book chronicles her own journey of recovery but also explores the psychological and scientific reasons for our encounters with nature being of such enormous benefit: why the sound of birdsong, feel of morning sunshine on our faces and smell of the earth can be so powerfully curative and uplifting.
Nature offers a perfect model of resilience and regeneration, she points out, however hostile the environment.
“What the past couple of years have taught me is that since you are a finite person in a world with almost infinite choices and possibilities, you’d be wise to prioritise those choices that serve your health and make you happy. For me that is walking in nature.”
Walk Yourself Happy takes up Julia’s personal journey but opens out to examine the elemental link between our own physical and mental health and the natural world.
ONLINE RESOURCE: The Outdoor Guide PICTURE: Julia Bradbury
It’s more than a decade since she and her sister Gina co-founded an outdoors website designed to share free resources about some of the best walking routes in the UK, including links to many of Julia’s TV programmes.
Nowadays the importance of spreading the word about the health benefits of nature has become not just an integral part of her own life but a true “passion project”.
Since then the pair have worked with disabled ambassador Debbie North, a keen hill walker before she became a wheelchair user, to help create a network of wheel-friendly walks for people with poor or no mobility, and launched a charitable scheme, The Outdoor Guide Foundation, which raises funds to allow schools to get pupils outdoors in all weathers.
Once recovered from her mastectomy, Julia recalls taking a hike up Mam Tor in the Peak District with her whole family.
“It’s where I started walking as a child, and one of the most special places in the world to me,” she recalls.
Standing at the top, holding hands in the sunshine and shouting down into the valley, she found tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Climbing Mam Tor with the people I love most in the world felt like a profound restatement of faith in my future,” she says. “I needed to do it, not just to give thanks, but to overwrite the despair and desolation that cancer had brought into my life.”
Walk Yourself Happy by Julia Bradbury is published by Piatkus at £20.
Worried, angry and disappointed by the response of the mainstream political parties to the crisis of climate change, the Buckinghamshire councillor decided the only adequate response was to launch a new political party solely dedicated to saving the planet.
MAN ON A MISSION: Ed Gemmell
Make way for the Climate Party – a self-explanatory centre-right party with just one issue dominating its agenda.
Writing in The Guardian this month, Ed accused those involved in the Tory party leadership race of completely ignoring the crisis in their pitches to become the country’s next prime minister, while maintaining that all the mainstream parties had “miserably failed” Britain on climate issues.
BURNING ISSUE: bushfires in Tasmania PICTURE: Matt Palmer, Unsplash
“Likened to the inept Dad’s Army by the chairman of the Climate Change Committee, the Conservative government is not even on track to its meet own target to hit net zero by 2050 – a target considered by many scientists to be too late to avoid dangerous and increasingly lethal climate chaos,” he wrote.
Standing in front of Big Ben on the hottest day of the year (July 19), he was flanked by two of more than 100 candidates he claims will take on the Tories in marginal seats at the next election: Sarah Hutchison and Windsor and Maidenhead councillor Wisdom da Costa.
FEELING THE HEAT: Climate Party candidates outside parliament
For Ed, the party launch was just the latest twist in a career which has seen his convictions steadily grow about the urgency of the need for political change in our climate priorities.
As a parish councillor in Hazlemere, the former army officer and city lawyer was instrumental in the council making a “climate emergency declaration” and pioneering a “Bee Squared” project to rewild land for pollinators, issuing thousands of packets of wildflower seeds to local households.
BLUE PLANET: the earth from space PICTURE: NASA, Unsplash
Although he was trounced in the 2019 general election as an independent candidate for Wycombe, losing his deposit and watching Tory Steve Baker returned with a 4000-plus majority, he was more successful in winning an independent seat on the new unitary council for Buckinghamshire and is also managing director of Scientists Warning Europe, a charity focused on promoting science-endorsed solutions to the climate crisis.
Yet despite his belief in the “indisputable” scientific basis of his campaign, critics have dismissed his party for its “modest” social media presence and the Guido Fawkes political blog openly mocked the low-key launch of what it called “a new eco party pitching itself as the parliamentary wing of Extinction Rebellion”.
PEOPLE’S PROTEST: fighting against climate change PICTURE: Callum Shaw, Unsplash
Undeterred, Ed insists we should be setting 2030 as the date for decarbonisation – not just because that’s what will avoid catastrophe, but because Britain has a unique chance to seize an immense commercial opportunity to lead the world in that field – simultaneously helping to solve other major concerns like the cost of living crisis and energy security in the process.
He believes his party’s smart, pro-business ideas could appeal to disenfranchised climate-conscious Conservative voters who feel disrespected and ignored by their leadership, and points out that a third of British councils are already committed to carbon zero by 2030.
FLOOD WARNING: cars under water in Yorkshire PICTURE: Chris Gallagher, Unsplash
At the party’s launch, he told The Guardian his party would also challenge those Conservative backbenchers who oppose the government’s net zero policies.
Instead, his vision is for the UK to become a global leader in the energy transition by stopping all subsidies for fossil fuel companies, implementing polluter-pays policies to stimulate the circular economy, and investing in renewable infrastructures and technologies.
POLICY CHOICE: should polluters be made to pay? PICTURE: Chris LeBoutillier, Unsplash
He claims it’s the only way to protect the planet from climate tipping points, a term coined by IPCC scientists 20 years ago to describe the point at which small changes become significant enough to cause a larger, more critical change that can be abrupt, irreversible, and lead to cascading effects.
“We’ve got one election left to save the planet,” he says.
“Britain should be brave, power up and lead the world,” he adds. “Britain can do this. Britain can get climate done!”
IS THERE anything more beautiful than a bunch of home-grown, lovingly nurtured British flowers, freshly cut and carefully arranged?
Melanie Jones-Bharadwa doesn’t think so. And her love affair with British blooms really started to blossom once she started planning her wedding in 2015.
“Living in London but with my family in the north west, my mum mentioned that she felt a little left out of the day-to-day planning of the celebrations, so one day when I was sat in my little allotment thinking ‘wouldn’t it be great if I could use a few flowers I’d grown myself for the wedding’ it suddenly came to me that my mum could grow a few flowers for us in her garden,” Melanie recalls.
After studying textile design at university, Manchester-born Melanie worked in textile homeware development for Designers Guild and Laura Ashley and saw designers drawing inspiration from the textures and colours of British-grown flowers that were brought in for them to see and draw.
Starting to grow the first few wedding flowers soon sparked plans for something a little more ambitious, Melanie remembers: “A few quickly turned to a lot as we experienced just how obsessive it is to sow a little seed and experience the joy of watching it grow with your nurturing, and finally being rewarded with beautiful blooms all summer.”
As vegetables began to be replaced by flowers on her allotment, she was shocked to discover that as much as 90% of the UK’s £1.3bn cut-flower trade relies on imports from other countries – mainly the Netherlands, but from as far afield as Kenya and Ecuador.
“A lot of people are becoming aware of British-grown flowers and the impact of imported stuff,” she says.
Given her love of being outdoors, could this provide the basis of a business idea?
“I always wanted to grow more to be able to share with other flower lovers and during lockdown I decided to take the plunge and start growing on a larger scale,” she says.
Having located an allotment in the Chalfonts where she could produce beautifully scented seasonal blooms, Melanie set to work – and Gathered From The Garden was born.
Avoiding pesticides brings its own challenges, she admits, and getting her micro-scale artisan plot up and running has been both a labour of love and a process of trial and error to work out what grows well.
“I don’t use chemicals or pesticides, but I had a massive problem with rabbits,” she admits. “I had a particular type of flower destroyed by flea beetle. But everything has its place in the eco-system. And growing a wild mix of flowers makes it manageable.”
Growing everyday things like strawberries, beans and pumpkins, as well as flowers, has always been a delight, but time spent outdoors has become even more important now that her daughter is nearly three. “You look a life at little differently,” says Melanie. “It’s important for me to show her the growing cycle and how to grow things from seed.”
Whereas commercial supermarket flowers have to be “perfectly straight, or identical”, home-grown blooms can be unique and unusual, she says. “There are flowers which don’t travel well and which you just don’t see, so if you want that type, you need to grow it.”
Starting on a small scale, Melanie sells dried flowers and natural confetti as well as bouquets, with some of her bouquets available at The Hatchery farm shop outside Beaconsfield. This year, her first season will run from June until the first frosts of October / November, but she’s already planning bulbs which will flower in the spring.
She is also a member of Flowers From The Farm, an award-winning membership association which champions artisan growers of seasonal, scented, sustainable British cut flowers and which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.
The fact that the association has grown in size during the course of the pandemic from 700 to more than 1,000 members is an encouraging sign of people’s growing concern about sustainable growing, Melanie believes.
“The amount of information that people are willing to share is amazing, ” she says. “I am passionate about growing British flowers that are not only beautiful but that are also environmentally friendly. To me this means growing without the use of chemicals and following the principles of organic growing. In addition to this all packaging is either recyclable or reuseable.”
Husband Kalpesh works in IT and is no gardener, but he does help with petal-picking for confetti and has been very supportive, she says – even fashioning a mud kitchen on the allotment where their daughter can play when there’s work to be done.
“She’s fascinated with bees but wants to touch them all the time,” says Melanie. “It’s nice having her there although she does tend to pull leaves off plants or end up trampling them.
“I love my little plot and the tranquillity it brings. Being situated within a small holding I saw all the wildlife buzzing around and knew that I wanted to do my bit to protect them all, meaning not only do I grow with no chemicals, I also have a dedicated patch of native wildflowers growing for the pollinators, along with a selection of bee-friendly flowers, left for their benefit.”
Unlike a florist, it’s that fascination with how things grow that drives Melanie. “You are constantly learning but I’d rather be doing the growing than the arranging,” she says.
“My dream is to have a pick-your-own farm. It’s nice to have an area to wander through beautiful flowers and taken them home and arrange them yourself.”
SOMETIMES it takes a crisis to make you look at the world in a different way.
That was certainly true for Steve Gozdz. He and his partner Billie O’Connor relocated from Surbiton to the Chilterns in 2019 to be closer to nature, but he was due to head back into corporate life when Covid-19 struck.
BIRD IN THE HAND: wildlife photographer Steve Gozdz
Despite years working as a contracts manager, Steve had always had a keen interest in wildlife, especially birds.
And as he explored the local countryside during the initial lockdown taking pictures of the wildlife he saw and sharing them with others on social media, he was taken aback by the level of appreciation of his photographs – and later, by requests from people to join him on his walks.
OUT AND ABOUT: Steve’s guided walks proved increasingly popular
After setting up a Facebook page encouraging local people to engage with nature, as lockdown restrictions bit hundreds of followers starting to share their own photographs from their walks.
Could wildlife tour guiding provide a new career for the 46-year-old entrepreneur? Goring Gap Wildlife Walks was born.
GAP IN THE MARKET: Steve realised his hobby could provide the basis for a new business
“We agreed now was the time to swap that corporate lifestyle for my passion,” says Steve, whose friends dubbed him ‘The Bird Whisperer’ for his ability to help them seek out and enjoy the local wildlife.
On holidays abroad, the couple would often pay a guide to show them the sights and wildlife of different countries, from Gambia and Senegal to Portugal. Why not try running similar guided walks closer to home?
SNAP HAPPY: a pair of pheasants put on a show PICTURE: Steve Gozdz
Says Steve: “I have always been fascinated by wildlife and having moved to the Chilterns, I was able to really indulge in my “serious hobby” of wildlife photography and walking in our amazing countryside.”
Part of his mission is open people’s eyes to the area’s natural wonders, and the couple could hardly be better placed, given the unique Thameside location of the ancient villages of Goring and Streatley, the meeting point of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (the Chilterns and North Wessex Downs).
RIVERSIDE RAMBLE: Goring and Streatley straddle the Thames PICTURE: Steve Gozdz
Here two national trails intersect (the Ridgeway and Thames Path), making the villages a popular stopping-off point for those on long-distance walks, with ready access to both Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
While the immediate surroundings were ideal for guided tours, the area covered by his walks was soon rapidly expanding over neighbouring counties, with options ranging from short family walks geared towards children to private tailored walks for those interested in more specific “sightings”.
BALL OF FLUFF: a tawny owlet PICTURE: Steve Gozdz
“I think there really is a growing interest in the countryside and appreciate of the wildlife within it,” says Steve. “The difficulties of Covid-19 have been numerous, but during these hard times we have seen a positive by-product – the growing love and appreciation of our countryside and wildlife.
“I spend most of my time outdoors. I really believe in the power of nature as a healing agent and to bring about calm and balance. Scientific studies have certainly proven the power of fresh-air therapy – being in the outdoors, walking, and taking in nature.”
FRESH-AIR THERAPY: a firecrest poses for the camera PICTURE: Steve Gozdz
Current lockdown restrictions may have prevented Steve from running walks for customers, but he has kept up his daily exercise walks and has been taking plenty of photographs to share across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
“Winter brings a number of birds only seen this time of year such as fieldfare and redwing; both quite shy but beautiful birds, they winter here to escape the harsher climate of their mostly Scandinavian homes,” he says.
“We have also seen small groups of lesser redpoll feeding in the silver birches and alder, and flocks of goldfinch have made their way into our gardens to feast on feeders of nyger and sunflower hearts.”
WINTER VISITOR: a redwing among the rosehips PICTURE: Steve Gozdz
With kingfishers posing obligingly at various places along the river and the signs of spring all around, there’s certainly no shortage of sightings to write about, much to the delight of his social media followers.
“The birds are now more vocal, especially at dawn as they re-establish existing pair bonds and last year’s young are ready to become parents themselves,” says Steve. “We are fortunate in this area of the UK to have four types of owls we could see, especially during the stage of post-fledgling until the end of the summer; my owl walks prove extremely popular from June to August.”
LOCKDOWN ALBUM: a nuthatch PICTURE: Steve Gozdz
Steve’s clearly itching to get back out and about as soon as the restrictions allow, having organised walks for more than 200 people since starting the business in July 2020.
Future events include the Chilterns Walking Festival, more family-friendly wildlife walks with spotting guides, and partnerships with local hotels who want to offer wildlife tours and photography sessions for their guests.
FROZEN IN FLIGHT: the barn owl is one of four species found locally PICTURE: Steve Gozdz
Many walks take place on private land, allowing the small groups to be genuinely alone with the wildlife they come across.
“The children really love it and you never know whether you might be inspiring the next Chris Packham,” says Steve.
“I started out thinking this would be a temporary business to see me through lockdown but now I’m hoping to earn a permanent living from my passion. I feel very lucky with the success I’ve had so far.”
YOU don’t need perfect vision to enjoy a deep and sustaining relationship with nature.
No one knows that better than Andy Shipley, who has been visually impaired for much of his life but whose love of the natural world is matched by his belief in an inclusive society – and his absolute determination to bring those two passions together.
Over the years he has channelled his experience into his work as a facilitator, campaigner, speaker and coach – and he has even developed a fortnight-long sensory odyssey designed to deepen everyone’s relationship with nature.
“I believe our future depends on people acquiring a deeper relationship with those around them, and with the natural world,” says Andy. “To achieve this, we need to open people’s hearts to the value of nature and awaken their sense of belonging.”
The multi-sensory nature immersion experiences he has developed enable people to start to fully notice the textures under their toes, the breath of the breeze and the banter of the birds.
“They help reconfigure and rebalance your sensory relationship with nature, and shift your perspectives in everyday life,” says Andy.
“Nature is our life-support system. As well as providing us with the air, water and food vital to keep us alive and breathing, time spent connecting with the natural world sustains our physical and mental health.
“By spending time experiencing nature’s diversity more deeply, we have the opportunity to propagate a life-sustaining relationship that will support us from here on.”
His sensory odyssey was all the more relevant with so many people in isolation because of coronavirus or finding more time to explore nature on their own or as a family.
The programme involves a series of daily audio messages lasting a few minutes which encourage participants to develop a more intimate relationship with the natural world.
Each sensory exercise includes a link to “little nuggets of inspiration and revelation” – about how plants communicate, for example, or how the human nose can detect a trillion smells, along with other audio stimuli ranging from wind in the trees to the dawn chorus – or even the sound of rhubarb growing.
Participants can do the sensory exercises standing, seated or lying down, outdoors or even in the living room with the windows open wide.
And the resource allows visitors to repeat the odyssey, spending more time on the detail, changing the sequence, or repeating the exercises they enjoyed the most.
“Like any exercise, the more you flex your sensory muscles the richer your experience will become,” says Andy, an experienced campaigner and project leader whose activities have ranged from blindfolded team-building exercises, adventure activities and dining experiences to workshops exploring how natural heritage sites could become more inclusive for the visually impaired.
He explains: “Healthy habitats are those which are abundant with diverse species occupying all strata of the web of life, filling their particular niche, but also contributing to the health and well-being of the whole.
“It seems to me therefore, that for our own human communities to become healthy, we need to work to create the conditions for all, whatever their background and circumstances, to find their niche, flourish and contribute to the well-being of our world.”
Bourne End Community Association kindly carried this feature about The Beyonder in the Christmas 2020 edition of their Target magazine
IT’S a glorious November day at Burnham Beeches and journalism lecturer Andrew Knight is enjoying a morning walk in the woods.
The yellows and golds of the falling leaves provide a colourful backdrop that’s perfect for photography and he’s on the lookout for anything that could make an interesting feature for his website.
Recent posts have focused on the extraordinary range of fungi on display this year or unusual wildlife – like the busy wood ants in these woods or an adder stumbled across by chance at Stoke Common.
As well as listing dozens of ideas for things to do across the Chilterns, the website explores local history and folklore, colourful characters living in the area and local businesses and artists who share a fascination for the great outdoors.
The magazine stemmed from a conversation on a journey to the Lake District in 2017, a couple of years after Andrew moved from London to Buckinghamshire to be closer to fiancée Olivia, who grew up in Gerrards Cross.
“I had spent a lot of time in the Chilterns over the years but it was really starting to feel like home,” Andrew explains. “As we explored all over the region, we became more and more fascinated with the history, the landscape and the people.”
The pair returned from their holiday with a firm idea of the shape of the magazine, but there was a lot of work to do – and over the past couple of years more than 200 articles have been added to the website.
“As a journalist, I know only too well that you need to have some good quality content to make it worthwhile for people to come back again and again,” says Andrew.
“We wanted to share our love of the outdoors and encourage families to venture outside, to fall in love with the landscape we call home, and in turn, to take responsibility for their patch in whatever way they feel inspired – big or small.”
Earlier this year, the magazine was looking ahead to launch a comprehensive What’s On listings service for families looking for ideas of where to go for a great day out, designed to tie in with all the events and openings in April. But within days, the country was in lockdown.
“Suddenly everyone was very limited in where they could go and what they could do, with all the attractions, pubs and hotels shut. But it was encouraging to see an enormous upsurge of interest in the natural world, with more families than ever out and about together walking, rambling or cycling,” Andrew recalls.
“We may be in lockdown again but we can’t wait to see those places reopening in 2021. It’s been an incredibly difficult time for everyone, but so many people have spoken about nature and wildlife helping them cope.
“Since launching the magazine we’ve met some wonderful people, all passionate about the local area, and it’s allowed us to write about everything from highwaymen to hillforts and find out more about the natural world.”
The What’s On pages contain dozens of ideas about where to go when everything reopens in 2021, as well as lots of ideas for walks other free activities.
Andrew admits he gets upset by the huge amount of litter scattered along local roadsides, as well as the amount of fly-tipping in local woodland, the decline of wildlife species and the impact of HS2 building work.
“It’s very upsetting to see beautiful places under threat, but people need to know what’s out there in order to enjoy it and become enchanted by it. Education is the key. Once young people in particular are out there enjoying the outdoors, they are more likely to want to fight to protect it.”
FANCY a day out on the dodgems? Or a chance to learn about signwriting?
The March coronavirus lockdown hit travelling funfairs hard, with all their spring and summer bookings cancelled.
But one Berkshire funfair family wasn’t prepared to sit back and do nothing over the long summer months, especially having spent years restoring a fleet of 1960s dodgems to pristine working condition.
Joby Carter soon found his traditional signwriting skills were in demand online – and when lockdown restrictions started to ease, the family launched a unique dodgems experience at their base near Maidenhead.
Restoring the worn-out 1960s cars has been a long labour of love for Joby and his team: a restoration process that has taken 25 years of on-and-off work.
“We were determined to finish them in time to reveal them at the first event of our 2020 tour but the COVID-19 pandemic meant that this was not possible,” he says.
The dodgems track was built in the 1960s by Supercar of Warwick and had spent its entire working life in an arcade until it was bought by Carters in 1989. But the original set of Supercar dodgems bought by Joby’s late father John in the 1990s were too worn out to operate.
“It’s believed to be the last traditional round-ended dodgem track that Supercar built,” says Joby. “There is no other dodgem set like this in the world and that’s why we are so excited to open our dodgem experience to the public.”
Unlike at the fair, visitors to the funfair’s base at White Waltham get exclusive access these original 1960s Supercar Italias for half an hour as a group, allowing them to enjoy the dodgems experience in their chosen bubble, with friends watching if they wish.
All 18 cars have now been restored, although the family managed to finish a few in time for them to enjoy a bit of Hollywood fame with the launch of the award-winning movie Rocketman about the life of Elton John.
“We managed to finish a few cars last winter in time and they looked fabulous on the big screen. We’ve worked on them even more since then to get the whole set perfect,” says Joby.
He was just 18 months old back in 1977 when his parents, show promoters John and Anna Carter, bought their first ride – a set of 1890s Jubilee Steam Gallopers that they could take to steam rallies and fairs.
As their passion for vintage fairgrounds grew, they added more rides to their collection and soon Carters Steam Fair became known as specialists in vintage fairground rides, with the artistic talents of Anna Carter put to good use restoring rides to their former glory.
In 1999 they found a new yard to house the fair during the winter months, but were shocked when John Carter was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and died the following year. His enthusiasm and vision had been a guiding force for the fair, but his children had inherited his love for the fair and what it stood for.
After a very difficult few months, it was decided to get the fair back out on the road and continue what John had started.
Joby and his wife Georgina took over the managing of the fair from Anna a few years ago, and are heavily involved in the travelling, maintenance and restoration of the rides.
The fair has since gone from strength to strength, with Joby, Anna, Seth and Rosie Carter and their families all personally involved, and with many friends and supporters working hard to keep it on the road.
The original Gallopers were lovingly restored, most of the horses having been carved from wood by Andersons of Bristol around 1910, and all subtly different to one another. They are all named after friends and family on the fair.
The 46-key Gavioli organ (c1900) was bought from Roger Daltrey in 1979 and provides that unmistakeable fairground atmosphere.
But with rides and sidestalls dating from the late 1890s to the 1960s, the collection includes everything from the steam-driven yachts of the 1920s to a 1910 roundabout featuring an eclectic collection of creatures from running cockerels, to hungry-looking pigs and curious Lord Kitchener centaurs.
From a coconut shy to duck- and fish-hooking games and test-your-strength “strikers”, the funfair has all the traditional elements of a country fair that would have delighted our Victorian and Edwardian ancestors and it provides fascinating insights into British social history.
“When a ride comes into our care, we research as much as we can and try to trace its ancestry,” says Joby. “If we’re lucky, we can even find photos of it from its heyday.”
Skilled painters then work on restoring the ride back to its former glory using traditional sign-writing techniques and making sure that everything is accurate to the era.
Traditionally everything in the fair is moved around the country using vintage heavy lorries and magnificent showman’s living wagons.
Like the rides, each of the fleet of lorries, some dating from the 40s, 50s and 60s, has been lovingly restored to its former glory and repainted in the distinctive red Carters livery.
Every bit as impressive are the beautifully decorated living wagons with cut-glass windows, lace curtains and premium wood and veneer inside, each with their own story to tell and many previously owned by well-known showmen or circus owners.
The emphasis on traditional signwriting techniques is important to Joby, and it’s another skill which came to the fore during the Covid-19 lockdown, when he was able to offer online courses to people around the world.
In an interview for BBC South, he says: “Funny thing is, I can remember my dad saying to me it would good to have a skill to fall back on. Little did he know that I could stay at home in my garage, teach people around the world and that would actually be saving the fair.”
The collection of rides and side stalls makes Carters the largest travelling vintage funfair in the world, but fans will have to wait until 2021 to see it in its full glory.
Fair spokesperson Mercedes Lavin said: “The Dodgem Experience was intended to be for July and August but due to its popularity we are planning to open it on the weekends after August.
“The fairground is hoping to return in 2021. We usually begin touring around Easter time and travel the country until Bonfire Night. The tour dates will be published around February time.”
Carters dodgems experience at White Waltham runs until August 31 and then at weekends in September.
Details of Joby’s online signwriting courses can be found here.
All the images in this article are reproduced with the kind permission of Carters Steam Fair and more information about the fair’s history and the background to individual rides, sideshows and vehicles can be found on their website.
HENRY Allum doesn’t need much encouragement to go for a walk.
Show him a footpath, ancient abbey or closed railway line and he’s off, map, phone and microphone at the ready, all set to plan another video upload for his Youtube channel.
So it seems only natural to suggest we meet in Black Park for a chat and ramble, given that Henry has been back home with his parents in Chalfont St Peter since the lockdown began in March – and using that time to visit as many interesting places on his old home patch as he can.
HOME TURF: Henry has featured more local destinations during lockdown
It was around 2016 that the 31-year-old first thought about uploading short videos about his visits to heritage railways, but now Henry’s Adventures have become a regular feature on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram, with hundreds of subscribers checking in to see what he’s been up to.
In the past couple of years his uploads have begun to attract a lot more attention – not only from railway enthusiasts but a more general audience intrigued by a range of different subjects, from outdoors rambles to historical sites.
REGULAR UPLOADS: Henry’s subjects range from steam railways to rural rambles
“I do some to do with railways, but also castles, canals, anything I’m interested in,” he says, perhaps with a slight flicker of frustration at being as being typecast too easily as a railway buff when there are so many other things that fascinate him.
Although dozens of the short videos do chronicle railway visits – some dating back to the 90s – others include visits to sites of historical or natural interest at home and abroad, taking him as far afield as Belgium, Portugal and Romania.
OUT AND ABOUT: Henry visits the ruins of Godstow Abbey on the Thames
Many focus on steam train trips or visits to rail centres, reflecting not only his own passion for steam transport but his professional role organising railway journeys for groups at home and abroad.
Based at Leek in Staffordshire before the lockdown, some of his videos look at abandoned lines in that area, while others capture steam trains in action around the country – and miniature railways too.
SMALL SCALE: Henry calls in at the Vanstone Woodland Railway in Hertfordshire
Henry worked for the National Trust and at Bekonscot Model Village before taking on his current role, but was furloughed when the coronavirus crisis instantly impacted on the travel and leisure sector.
That allowed more time to concentrate on his Youtube venture, but initially prevented him from straying far from Chalfont St Peter.
“The furlough scheme has given me the chance to make more videos and upload some archive stuff,” he says – including some railway clips from family videos his father had shot.
MINIATURE WORLD: Henry at Bekonscot model village, where he used to work
Prior to lockdown, it was only after setting himself the challenge of visiting all of the country’s miniature railways that he realised the sheer scale of the task – there are around 340 of them, not including those privately owned.
Undeterred, he’s made a good start by uploading the first 20 or so, while making plans for more visits when the opportunity arises.
BACK TO NATURE: exploring National Trust properties in West Berkshire
A prolific vlogger with more than 200 uploads to his credit, passing the 1,000 subscriber mark means his channel can carry advertisements and potentially generate Youtube income – though this is a labour of love and he is under no illusions about making any real money through his videos.
Most of the uploads are short and straightforward, with minimal editing, and mainly filmed on his own, with occasional help from his Hungarian girlfriend Barbara.
PROLIFIC: Henry’s Youtube channel features more than 200 videos
He has a relaxed, easygoing style when addressing the camera and realises in many cases the central attraction is the locomotive, castle or station in question, rather than him hogging the limelight.
He has also been making the most of the furlough period to go back through old family films and upload archive footage from the 90s, searching for appropriate railway clips that his subscribers might appreciate.
WATCH THIS SPACE: Henry has plenty more adventures in the pipeline
The regularity of his posting has seen visitor numbers grow, and while some short clips may only receive 150 visits, some have attracted much bigger audiences, with several hundred tuning in to two series of short films shot around the village of Chalfont St Peter and following the route of the River Misbourne, with many adding comments and expressing their interest in the footage.
Surprise hits might attract more than 1,000 views – from closed lines to Cheshire’s steepest railway to a ramble round the Romanian city of Oradea – and his Facebook page now boasts more than 7,000 followers.
Always restless for another outing, it’s sometimes hard to know what to tackle next. What about the 78-mile Capital Ring walk round London, perhaps – or local long-distance walks like the Chiltern Way? And of course there are still those miniature railways beckoning.
It looks as if Henry’s in-tray is overflowing, which means his Youtube subscribers won’t have to wait too long for his next adventure…
[Sure enough, here’s Henry back on the trail a few days after we spoke…]
IT WAS disappearing birdsong which was to change the life of Chilterns artist Sue Graham and her family.
Many of her paintings are inspired by the local landscape and a series of her oil paintings which she started more than 10 years ago reflected her love of the dawn chorus.
But the painter could hardly have foreseen quite how that project would ultimately lead her family to buy a croft and start planting hundreds of trees on a remote Scottish island.
LOCAL LANDSCAPES: Sue in her home studio in Buckinghamshire
“When I started doing the Dawn Chorus paintings around 2008, there was a piercing resonance to the sounds I heard in my garden at four in the morning,” Sue recalls. “But even in the short time we have lived here there are fewer birds singing. That’s happening all over the place.”
What was obvious to Sue in her garden at Prestwood near Great Missenden was soon hitting the national headlines.
A survey in 2013 showed that in some cases the decline was dramatic and worrying. The sounds of the cuckoo, nightingale and turtle dove are enshrined in British folklore, yet populations of both summer migrants and many resident species have dropped in recent years.
CAUGHT ON CANVAS: Sue Graham’s painting And Birds Were Singing, To Calm Us Down
The scale of the problem had soon become apparent after the family moved back from America in 2002. “We always enjoyed the outdoors, but if you go out walking there’s always something missing,” she says. “None of the ground-nesting birds are there any more.”
The missing songbirds featured in a vivid series of paintings, but aside from inspiring her art, environmental worries were beginning to play a bigger part in the lives of the artist and her research scientist husband Gabriel Waksman – a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology whose work had taken them to New York and Missouri.
FEATHERED FRIENDS: Sue’s painting Dawn Chorus
By 2016, with the election of Donald Trump in America and the Brexit referendum in the UK, it seemed as if things were coming to a head.
Husband Gabriel was only too well aware that in almost 30 years as an academic and scientist, he had clocked up thousands of air miles travelling to international conferences, seminars and lectures at foreign institutions.
Many scientists and academics are increasingly worried about the environmental cost of such international travel – but Gabriel wanted to do something practical about it.
If travelling to conferences must remain part of a scientist’s life, what might be the best way to offset the carbon that will inevitably be released? The answer, it seemed to him, was to find a way that scientists, academics and others worried about the environment could offset their carbon emissions by planting trees in groves.
FRESH GROWTH: planting trees can help offset carbon emissions
In 2016, he teamed up with a couple of friends and the charity All Things Small and Green was born.
Writing in Nature magazine in February 2020, he explained: “Governmental action will be crucial in solving the problem of climate change, but individual responsibility has a major part to play.”
His charity allows air travellers to calculate their carbon emissions and work out how many native trees they need to plant to offset those, using a simple formula. The trees can then be planted in groves set up with Trees For Life, an environmental charity dedicated to rewilding the Scottish Highlands.
With more than 40 planting sites, the charity has overseen the planting of almost two million trees, growing thousands in its tree nursery and creating acres of new forest.
“I was especially drawn to native tree planting,” says Gabriel. “Carbon needs to be withdrawn from the atmosphere and I liked the idea of coupling carbon fixing with reconnecting to a wonder of nature such as a native woodland.”
CALL OF THE WILD: Gabriel officially launched his tree planting charity in 2019
Companies and universities can ask for groves to be set up for them – and he has also been in touch with partners in Spain and France to explore ways of allowing localised groves to be planted in other European locations.
The latest project is a grove which will allow French scientists, academics, and researchers to offset their carbon emissions by planting native trees closer to home.
“It is important to me, as a biologist, to ensure that the trees we work with are native,” he explains. “Native afforestation and reforestation increase biodiversity and restore degraded ecosystems. By contrast, monoculture conifer plantations — wrongly favoured by some governments — destroy biodiversity and damage natural ecosystems.”
The tree planting mission didn’t stop with the charity though. Sue found herself equally inspired by the need to do something more for the planet – particularly as the mother to two sons in their 20s.
“It was time to think about the legacy of what we leave and the only thing that would make us feel slightly better about putting two extra people on the planet,” she says.
The outcome was their dramatic decision to purchase a croft on the remote Scottish island of Gigha, with the aim of launching their own family rewilding project.
The 13-acre croft was once home to an old oat mill, although that is not habitable at the moment.
REWILDING PROJECT: the croft on Gigha
With their two sons working in Scotland, it might not have seemed so crazy to look at buying land in the area – but by any standards the croft is remote, Sue admits, although the location is picturesque too, looking out of the nearby island of Jura.
The island – with a population of under 200 – lies west of Glasgow off the coast of the Kintyre peninsula, accessed by ferry from Tayinloan, a small village about midway between Tarbert and Campbeltown.
OPEN OUTLOOK: the view towards Jura
“You think, ‘How much time have I got left?’ and of course it was always a project we should have started 20 years ago,” Sue admits.
But that didn’t stop them going ahead with the plan – and in November 2019 the first phase of their mission involved planting some 1300 trees on a three-acre site on the island.
“Planting trees is the best thing we can do for the future,” Sue insists. “I know it’s a drop in the ocean in terms of carbon capture, but I needed to sleep better at night.”
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE: the first wave of planting
It’s an enthusiasm her husband shares – although the project is separate from his charity activities: “Personally, an incidental outcome of this initiative has been my increased involvement in tree planting, from which I, my family and my friends have derived great joy,” he says.
“This is also one of the most selfless activities I have taken part in. A native woodland takes decades to come to maturity, so the results of my tree planting will hopefully be enjoyed by people much younger than me.”
The tiny saplings were selected with the help of the Woodland Trust to ensure they were best suited to the island’s soil and climate – a mixture of hazel, willow, birch, alder, oak and rowan.
LONELY LOCATION: the Gigha shoreline
“It gives us the opportunity in a very beautiful location to do something for the planet that we need to do for our psychological well-being,” says Sue, a self-taught artist with a degree in modern languages from Oxford University who loves walking, gardening, wildlife and cooking, as well as painting.
“I can barely remember a time when I didn’t paint, or wasn’t thinking about painting. I have had various other ‘real’ jobs but somehow my heart was never in them,” she says. “Somebody once asked me to reflect on why it is that I paint: the question has sat with me for years but I think the answer is this: to communicate feelings and ideas and to be accepted for who I am.”
Gigha was set to be a bold new chapter in the family story – but of course that was before the coronavirus crisis and personal health setbacks which have forced Sue to remain in Buckinghamshire for another year while she undergoes cancer treatment.
HIGH HOPES: Sue in her Buckinghamshire garden
But she remains unfailingly optimistic and determined about the island project and the prospects for their thousands of saplings, planted with such enthusiasm by the five-strong family team with two staff members and volunteers from the Woodland Trust.
With fertile soil and good climate – and friends on the islands keeping an eye on things – there’s every reason to hope the project will boost local biodiversity over the next couple of years.
Says Sue: “I was more afraid of looking back in 10 years’ time and thinking that we couldn’t do it.”
It’s also a welcome escape from health concerns and the challenges posed by chemotherapy.
“It’s going to be really interesting – and it’s nice to be able to think about something positive and lovely,” she says.
THERE’S nothing gardeners love more than sneaking a glance over someone else’s garden gate.
Over the years, that’s been the secret behind the success of the National Garden Scheme and its famous yellow book, the definitive guide to thousands of gardens which open for charity from time to time around the country.
Under normal circumstances, this is a perfect excuse to nose around someone else’s flowerbeds and enjoy countless afternoon mini-adventures, exploring spring snowdrops and summer floral displays in settings which range from sleepy cottage gardens to majestic manor houses.
The coronavirus lockdown may have prevented those adventures so far this year, but there are high hopes that visits might be able to resume by the autumn and the NGS is anxious to recoup some of the funds lost during the crisis.
We know that gardens are good for our health (as long as we don’t enjoy the home-made cakes too much!) but as well as being able to savour the fruits of someone else’s labout and perhaps get inspiration for ways of improving our own small plot, these open days have raised millions for charity since the NGS was founded in the early 1900s.
Back then the scheme originally supported district nurses, but nowadays the visits encourage donations worth millions of pounds to nursing and health charities.
That 90-year history gave one gardening enthusiast the idea of trying to visit 90 open gardens in a year, and in January 2017 Julia Stafford Allen began chronicling her perambulations around the country in her blog, The Garden Ga te Is Open.
Based in Norfolk, where she volunteers for the NGS and opens her own garden to the public, Julia is passionate about encouraging people to get out and visit gardens.
She says: “I think that garden visiting is a lovely pastime for families and gardens in the Scheme are usually private and children are admitted free.”
Although her blog is nationwide, her travels have frequently taken her through the Chilterns – to destinations like Welford Park in Berkshire, home of the Great British Bake Off since 2014, the Georgian manor house ar Walkern Hall in Hertfordshire or even a small wintry display of ornaments, mirrors and candles in the back garden of a house in Bushey, Hertfordshire.
“I loved the Bushey garden because children really enjoyed it,” she recalls. Other local forays – camera always firmly in hand – have taken her to see the display of snowdrops at Oak Cottage in the Berkshire village of Finchampstead and an unusual array of sculptures at Lord Carrington’s Bledlow Manor in North Buckinghamshire.
Her travels have taken her to Overstroud Cottage in Great Missenden, Rivendell in Amersham and even to Stoke Mandeville, although since the garden was still a building site, she returned a year later for the formal launch.
From extensive country landscapes and romantic cottage gardens to urban hideaways and ancient woodlands, there are thousands of open gardens to choose from, normally opening from February to October.
The £13.99 NGS handbook contains detailed descriptions of every garden, together with photographs, handy maps and calendars. This week NGS president Mary Berry launched a new appeal aimed at supporting gardens during the coronavirus crisis.
Speaking from her home, Mary said: “Right now people are not able to visit the gardens and there is no money being raised. In fact, as things are, the charity’s income is likely to be down by 80% during 2020. So a team at the National Garden Scheme made up of garden owners, volunteers and staff have organised a marvellous campaign centred about virtual garden visits. I urge you to support the campaign generously and to enjoy the stunning gardens.”
Since 1927 the National Garden Scheme has raised almost £60 million. Core beneficiaries include Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Hospice UK and The Queen’s Nursing Institute.
See the charity’s main website for details of gardens open later in the year – and The Beyonder hopes to feature key attractions in our monthly calendar from the autumn. Check out The Garden Gate Is Open blog for details of previous garden visits around the UK.
NOISE is all around us – and much of the time it’s not even the sort of sound we want to hear.
Even if it’s not the intrusive irritation of someone else’s music on the train or other people’s children arguing, we frequently want to tune out of the environment around us by plugging into a podcast or our favourite music.
But what about all the noise we are not listening to which might just have huge benefits for our mental health and wellbeing? That’s where Echoed Locations comes in, a project aiming to create the first ever sonic map of the Chilterns.
The project has designed sound recording workshops for local schools and community groups which focus first on attentive listening before moving on to practical recording techniques.
Elizabeth Buckley, communications and community engagement officer for the partnership scheme, explains: “It’s the seemingly ordinary sounds which make the Chilterns a unique and special place to live.
“Echoed Locations was developed because soundscapes are unique and important and inform how we feel about a place.”
The sounds they hope to collect for the project might range from birdsong in the local park to rush-hour traffic, a babbling stream or hoot of an owl at night. It might be a steam train in the distance, rain on a window pane or even a poem, song or interview.
“When you step off the bus as you arrive home, it is not just the smell of your neighbours’ garden or the sight of your front gate that makes you feel at home,” says Elizabeth (below).
“It is likely also the steady hum of a radio nearby, your mother’s voice calling you inside, far away traffic rumbling by.
“It is only when these sounds are lost from our day-to-day lives do, we really begin to listen. For example, when you arrive in a wood where no birds are singing, it feels odd and we notice the absence of a familiar sound. “
From the chatter of children walking to school to the buzzing of insects or hum of traffic, the project aims to encourage residents, visitors and especially young people to contribute to the sonic map.
Anyone can participate by adding audio recordings via the Echoed Locations website page and schools, local community groups and youth groups are encouraged to reach out to book a free sound recording workshop in 2020, although spaces are limited.
Volunteers willing to act as ‘Sonic Champions’ in High Wycombe, Amersham, Aylesbury and Princes Risborough (or the surrounding areas) will help promote the project and be given full training.
Contact Elizabeth on lbuckley@chilternsaonb.org to sign up for a sound recording workshop or as a volunteer, or with any other questions about the project.
YOU don’t expect to find good food at a zoo. You certainly don’t expect to be tucking into a venison ragu or fish stew sporting the sort of seasonal organic credentials you’d expect from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage.
But then ZSL’s Whipsnade Zoo is full of pleasant surprises, it seems, even on a wet and windy day. And if seems odd to start talking about catering facilities before mentioning the 2,500 animals on site, it’s just that food can make or break a family day out, as any parent can testify.
But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here. It’s a wild wintry day, so what possible logic is there for picking this as the perfect time to visit the UK’s largest zoo, which boasts 600 acres of land to explore, including areas where some animals can roam free, safari-park style?
One of the biggest surprises, perhaps, is the open outlook of the zoo’s location, which provides visitors with some stunning views over the surrounding Bedfordshire countryside.
If it feels odd to find penguins flourishing in this environment, it seems even stranger to see rural England laid out as a backdrop.
But this is “Europe” on the zoo map, a corner where lolloping wolverines rub shoulders with bears, wild boars and lynx – not to mention the penguins, who are clustered around looking a little disconsolate that the keepers are sweeping their rocks and giving their pool area a bit of a tidy up.
You don’t bump into too many wolverines in the Bedfordshire countryside these days. As with so many mammals, they were hounded out of England centuries ago by hunting and habitat loss, and now you would normally need to go to the Nordic countries or Russia to see the sturdy bear-like animal in the flesh.
At Whipsnade they appear quite happy frolicking in their paddock, but the largest member of the weasel family is a pretty tough customer with the capacity to travel 40 miles in a day and jaws that can crunch through bone – reindeer bone. Ouch.
A stone’s throw away are the zoo’s brown bears, but they are lying low at the back of their enclosure and not easy to spot. One of the great dilemmas for any zoo wanting to put their animals’ welfare first is that this may frequently mean guests can be a little disappointed when their most sought-after inhabitants don’t turn up on cue.
It’s clear from some of the more critical TripAdvisor guests that such problems can leave a sour taste, especially if the family has left the car outside the zoo in the free car park and is trekking around on foot only to find apparently empty cages.
But you have to take your chances when you visit Whipsnade and for us, the distant glimpse of those wonderful brown bears is strangely moving. We are also taking advantage of the fact that the fee to take your car into the zoo – normally an eye-watering £25 – is £12 until mid-February and worth every penny, even if it does mean worried parents keeping a wary eye out for the slow-moving traffic.
But we’ve made a day of it, arriving at opening time (10am), allowing plenty of time to meander around those rolling acres. In “Africa”, the lions may be asleep and the hunting dogs curled up in a family ball, but the white rhinos are getting a little frisky and the meerkets are obligingly cheeky.
We are also suitably refreshed with mid-morning sausage baps from Base Camp. Not all visitors have sung the praises of the new cafe set-up where you order by tablet, but we found the service cheerful, efficient and friendly, and the snacks freshly made and affordable.
While we are talking about moans, some guests seem to find the zoo layout confusing, but the colourful map gives you a clear overview of where everything is, and you can always retrace your steps if you feel you have missed a highlight.
To be fair, the complaints are clearly in the minority, with most guests happy to sing the zoo’s praises. It’s just tough to keep everyone satisfied…
Breakfast behind us, it’s a little easier to join the giraffes as they take their time savouring their food, delighted younger guests watching each ball of leaves travelling back up that long neck for some more grinding.
The wind may be blowing hard on top of the escarpment and there’s plenty of mud to wade through but the younger guests are all well prepared with their hats and wellies, and everyone seems happily reconciled to the cutting wind and occasional shower.
It’s something the zoo is keenly aware of because they do like to advise visitors of the range of indoor options available – not just cafes and an indoor play area, but other refuges dotted around the park, like the hippo enclosure – hot and smelly, it’s true, but a fascinating place to escape a shower if the residents are enjoying a satisfying wallow.
Other hot spots include a tropical butterfly house where 30 species of colourful and exotic butterflies flutter around and a new aquarium which discovers some of the secrets of freshwater fish, explores unusual habitats from flooded forests to mysterious caves, and tells the story of conserving some of the world’s most critically endangered species.
Back in the open air, it’s time to soak up the view again – and consider whether lunch River Cottage style is a sensible investment at this point. It has to be said that the franchise hasn’t enjoyed the best of reviews since it opened, but if previous guests have found the food disappointing or the restaurant closed, we found the reverse.
Yes, £25 for two main courses is on the dear side, but our dishes were good – and on a sunny day, the setting would have been breathtaking.
You don’t have to eat in the restaurant to enjoy the view, either – there are seats and picnic tables all around the grounds for picnickers on a tighter budget, and other cafes on site to choose from, including the cheaper adjoining deli section.
But for our visit the welcome was warm, the meals inviting and the overall experience enjoyable. And families with young children seemed to be coping well too, despite some of the reservations about the menu expressed online.
From this hilltop outlook it’s easier to get a feel for quite what an inspired investment this was when Hall Farm, a derelict farm on the Dunstable Downs north of London, was bought by the Zoological Society of London in 1926 for a little under £500.
The site was fenced, roads built and trees planted, with the first animals arriving in 1928 and the zoo welcoming its first guests on Sunday May 23, 1931.
The Zoological Society of London had been founded in 1826 by Sir Stamford Raffles with the aim of promoting the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats, at to that end London Zoo was established in Regents Park. Almost a century later, Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell, then the long-term secretary of the ZSL, was inspired by a visit to the Bronx Zoo in New York to create a park in Britain as a conservation centre.
The rest, as they say, is history, except that today the conservation message is stronger than ever and central to everything the zoo does, as the website explains. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the zoo’s breeding programme.
This cheeky female greater one-horned rhino was born to mum Behan and dad Hugo in December last year, weighing in at 70kg, more than twenty times the average human at birth.
Every New Year the zookeepers tot up the latest arrivals at Whipsnade, taking stock of every creature, great and small, from lemurs and lions to fast-moving vampire crabs and Madagascan hissing cockroaches.
With the total now topping more than 2,500, things have come a long way since author and conservationist Gerald Durrell worked as a junior keeper here after the war, with Beasts In My Belfry recalling events from the period.
Nowadays there are cheetahs and zebra, herds of camels, yak and deer romping across open paddocks and even a farmyard where visitors of all ages can get a little closer to rabbits and hens, miniature donkeys and baby goats – not to mention a shaggy Poitou donkey, with a larger-than-life character and distinctive coat.
The last time we visited there was another unexpected visitor pulling in the crowds, with birdwatchers from all over the UK dusting off their telephoto lenses to pay tribute to an Asian avian visitor blown off course by winter gales during its migration.
It might seem ironic that the surprise arrival – a black-throated thrush – could fly off at any time it wants, unlike most of the inhabitants at Whipsnade, but this is not a zoo that leaves you feeling sorry for its animals (though Owl Wood is overdue a makeover…).
SURPRISE ARRIVAL: Whipsnade’s unusual visitor PICTURE: Angela Scott
The pioneering conservation work, glorious location and acres of rolling paddocks make it pretty clear here what the top priorities are – and just how much affection and respect the staff have for their furry, feathered and scaly charges.
From the tiger’s enclosure a hungry growl echoes around the park, a sound to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. But the Bedfordshire neighbours must be used to some strange sounds echoing down from the hills…
With the light fading, it’s time to head off, and allow Whipsnade’s motley assortment of wonderful animals to get a good night’s sleep away from prying human eyes.
For more details about tickets and opening times, membership packages, keeper experiences and overnight stays, see the zoo’s website.
GENERATIONS of children have delighted in the extraordinary miniature world of Bekonscot Model Village.
Before the war, a teenage Princess Elizabeth and her sister Margaret were among early visitors to marvel at the village landscapes created by accountant Ronald Callingham in the back garden of his home at Beaconsfield.
Originally, Callingham’s swimming pool and tennis courts had been used for garden parties attended by London’s high society, with politicians and aristocrats escaping from the city for a breath of country air.
But when Mrs Callingham intimated in 1928 that either his indoor model railway went or she would, his model railway moved outdoors and Bekonscot was born.
The world’s oldest model village was not conceived as a commercial visitor attraction but as a plaything to entertain Callingham and his guests.
Named after Beaconsfield and Ascot, where he had previously lived, it was only after 1930 that the existence of his garden empire became widely known, capturing the imagination of the press and public alike. It was formally opened to visitors in 1937 – and since that time has attracted more than £15m people through its gates.
With the help of his gardener, cook, maid and chauffeur, Callingham set about the business of painstakingly recreating the landscape of Britain in the 1930s, with local buildings and personal favourites of the staff providing much of the inspiration, all constructed from memory, photos or imagination.
Gloriously eccentric and intricately crafted, Bekonscot was always full of fun and character, rather than an exercise in precision, and that spirit lives on today in the countless tiny vignettes and terrible puns captured in the names of village stores.
It’s the challenge of spotting all those small humorous details that still gives visitors so much pleasure today. And yet, although Bekonscot’s founder never intended his creation to be taken too seriously, there was nothing small about the scale of his vision – his miniature world boasts some 200 buildings with more than 3,000 tiny people living in them.
And that’s not to mention one of the largest and most complex model railways in the UK, covering 10 scale miles at 1:32 scale.
This ultimate Gauge 1 train set was built with the help of the model railway manufacturer Bassett-Lowke (and the current computer control system was programmed by the same expert who programmed the Jubilee Line extension to London’s underground).
Overall, the site covers around two acres, much of it crafted as a miniature 1:12 landscape, with buildings constructed in natural materials, concrete or dense foamboard, and many dating from the 1920s.
There are pubs and cottages, shops and railway stations, cricket on the village green and even a zoo, circus, funfair, castle, port, colliery…well, perhaps it’s easier to think of a scene that hasn’t been recreated in miniature.
Bekonscot has seen many changes in its long history, but the biggest came in 1992 when it reverted back in time to the 1930s – where it has remained ever since.
That timewarp is also reflected in the education centre, which boasts an array of 1930s memorabilia and encourages children to find out more about the era – and even dress up in period clothes.
A dozen full-time staff maintain the village throughout the year and successive generations of modelmakers, gardeners and craftsmen have left their mark on the landscape and buildings.
It’s easy to see how these surroundings could have inspired the series of Borrowers books by Mary Norton, because in each of the six model villages are an array of tiny vignettes depicting different aspects of village life – from cricketers to choirboys and from railway passengers to rugby players.
An increasing number of small models are also mechanised, bringing further life to the scenes, whether in the form of a waving coal miner or a painter falling from his ladder.
From rock climbers in the fishing village of Southpool to George and Anna getting married in Hanton, from the Brownies dancing round their maypole to the gravediggers in the churchyard, there’s always another small detail to spot or drama unfolding in miniature – like the fire fighters struggling to put out a blaze in the thatched roof of a local cottage.
For railway buffs young and old the railway is a delight, with up to a dozen trains running at a time, including some original stock from the 1930s. Some trains have been running for over half a century, each covering about 2,000 miles per year.
There are a seven stations in total, two based on local examples, with lineside features including tunnels, a working level crossing and even a scaled-down replica of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, traversed by the branch line to the coal mine.
The model railway has changed many times over its history but the impressive signalbox at Maryloo incorporates lever frames from Purley and Ruislip Gardens which control the points and signals across the gardens to provide a large selection of different routes. The village website even features a driver’s-eye view of the journey.
Another miniature railway runs round the perimeter of the site, giving passenger rides. The 7¼ inch gauge Bekonscot Light Railway was extended in 2004 to a new terminus.
Equally impressive are the water features around the canal basin, warehouse and locks, the working tramway and cablecars, the sailing boats out on the lake (and even the real fish under their keels which dwarf the tiny sailors!).
Immortalised on TV in shows from Blue Peter and Countryfile to Midsomer Murders, Bekonscot is one English tradition which has clearly stood the test of time – and the children peering into the windows of the church and hospital seemed as delighted today by its quirkiness and eccentricity as they’ve always been.
Bekonscot has been run by the Church Army since 1978 and has raised millions for charity.
For full details of the attractions, prices and history, see the main Bekonscot website.
YOU don’t have to be a martyr or a hero to help save the planet. But you do need a certain amount of steely determination.
A few years have passed since California-based zero-waste guru Kathryn Kellogg set out to reduce the amount of waste she produces to almost nothing.
In that time, her eagerness and enthusiasm have also helped her to engage with other people concerned about the future of the planet – to the extent that the 20something’s lifestyle blog attracts more than 10,000 page views a month – and plenty of hate mail into the bargain.
SAVING THE PLANET: zero waste campaigner and blogger Kathryn Kellogg
Interview by the Guardian back in 2016 Kathryn, then 25, admitted to spending four hours a day on the blog, posting on Instagram, engaging with Facebook followers and writing about everything from homemade eyeliner to worm composting.
It was a breast cancer scare during her college years that sparked her interest in thinking about what we put in our bodies. And although the tumours were benign, living with the pain set her thinking about beauty and cleaning products.
“The whole experience really got me thinking about what I put in and on my body. I had never considered it before; I just assumed everything I was consuming was safe,” she recalls.
“What I learned is there’s very little regulation and testing for a lot of the products we buy. Many of these products contain endocrine disruptors which interfere with our hormones. I felt very motivated to take control of my health, try to balance my hormones, and naturally ease my pain.”
She started to reduce her contact with plastic, cooking from scratch, checking her sugar and caffeine intake and making my own cleaning products, and opting for green beauty products.
“After experimenting and moving to a more holistic lifestyle, all of my pain went away,” she says.
COMMUNITY EFFORT: Kellogg encourages followers to get friends and family involved
The aspiring actress majored in musical theatre and performed professionally after college before moving to California where she lives north-east of San Francisco with her husband Justin and their “fluffball” dog Nala.
Nowadays she buys secondhand, uses cloth bags and glass jars for shopping, composts her leftovers and views recycling as a last resort. Her aim is to fit a year’s worth of trash – anything that hasn’t been composted or recycled – into an 8oz glass jar.
Appalled by the litter and plastic lining the streets around her home, she’s also only too well aware that plastic isn’t just bad for personal health, but for the health of the planet.
Interestingly, back in October the global brands analyst team at Mintel identified concern over throwaway plastic as one of six key consumer trends impacting on industries and markets around the world in 2019 – so perhaps the campaigner’s time has come.
“I started my blog to help others improve their personal health, improve the health of the planet, and most importantly I wanted everyone to know their choices matter. Big or small, the changes you make add up to a huge positive impact,” she says.
“Small actions done by hundreds of thousands of people will change the world. You don’t have to be perfect to make a difference, you just have to try.”
Her followers may not quite be ready to follow in her footsteps as far as having a zero-waste wedding (as she did in 2017) or zero-waste Christmases (since 2015). But Kathryn’s enthusiasm is infectious and her message has always been that every little counts.
And for anyone interested in embarking on that first stage in the journey, her blog posts provide easy no-nonsense ways of getting started.
Another zero waste enthusiast is healthy living blogger and vegan Joshua Howard of ecolifemaster.com who has published a guide to waste-free living.
SOMETIMES it’s hard to get an image out of your mind.
For Daniel Webb, that sight was a litter-strewn Kent beach he encountered on an evening run in 2016.
RUBBISH MOUNTAIN: Daniel Webb PICTURE: Ollie Harrop
The 36-year-old had moved to Margate that summer, attracted by the sea, creative community and small-town feel.
But his plastic-riddled run along the coast one evening that September set him thinking about his own personal impact on pollution – just how much rubbish does one person living alone produce, and how much of it is actually recycled?
Surprised to be told by his local council that no recycling facilities were available at his block of flats, he set out to discover just how much plastic waste he produced in a year.
The staggering answer, chronicled in painstaking detail by researcher and earth sciences expert Dr Julie Schneider, was more than 4,400 individual items of plastic, categorised, weighed and photographed in the form of a huge mural used to launch his Everyday Plastic project.
The UK throws away over 295 billion pieces of plastic every year
93% of Daniel’s collected plastic waste was single-use packaging
67% of his throwaway plastic was used to package, wrap and consume food
70% of the plastic he threw away in a year is not currently recyclable
Only 4% of his collection would be recycled at UK recycling facilities
Dr Schneider said: “Daniel’s project was a unique opportunity to finally replace vague assumptions with concrete numbers. For instance, we wanted to know how much of our everyday plastic waste is actually recyclable. Plastic bottles can be properly recycled, but what about the plastic film that wraps our vegetables, pasta and sweets? All the plastic packaging stamped with the ‘not currently recycled’ logo? It turns out that 70% of Daniel’s plastic waste is not currently recyclable! This is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently.
“I wish everybody could have seen the room where we unpacked one year’s worth of Daniel’s plastic waste. In a massive warehouse in Margate, the floor was completely covered with thousands of plastic pots, trays, bags, films, lids and other everyday items. Everyone that entered the room had the same reaction: ‘Wow, that’s just one person’s plastic waste’.”
But what happens now? As Daniel said at the launch of his report: “We can’t just rely on recycling to fix plastic pollution. Most importantly, we need to produce and use much less plastic. Our fast-moving disposable society means that we are using more single-use things than ever, so we need to rethink how we consume.”
The report was released with the support of Surfers Against Sewage, whose CEO Hugo Tagholm said: “The Everyday Plastic report not only exposes the sheer diversity and volume of single-use plastic we all have to navigate daily, but as alarmingly, the inadequacy of current recycling systems, which only return a paltry amount of material back to shop shelves. Reducing the use of pointless plastics is a priority – there is just too much plastic currently being made. Then, all plastics that remain should be fully accounted for, captured and reprocessed by manufacturers. The future health of people and planet depend on drastically curbing plastic emissions.”
But we can all do our little bit to help, Daniel insists. “If I’d have given up plastic bottles, coffee cups, straws, stirrers, cutlery, carrier bags and swapped shower gel for soap, I would’ve thrown away 316 fewer items in 2017. If only half the UK population did the same thing, we could prevent 10 billion pieces from entering the waste system. So don’t ever let anyone tell you that individuals can’t make a difference!”
And what happens now? Last month Daniel hit his crowdfunding target, raising £4,315 to produce hard copies of the report help set up the Everyday Plastic charity.
“Everyday Plastic has changed my life,” he says. “By doing something weird such as collecting all the plastic I used in a year, I have had the fortunate opportunity to meet, learn from and help hundreds of people. And it’s a journey on which I would love to continue.
“I get to travel up and down the country, sharing my story, my thoughts and learn from amazing people.”
For latest news on how to help the project, see the websiteand Twitter feed.
THERE’S an almost primeval pleasure about cooking over a campfire that appeals to all ages.
No one knows that better than David Willis, whose bushcraft courses and other outdoor events encourage families to get out into the woods and reconnect with the natural world.
We meet at his Buckinghamshire base, an 18-acre expanse of private woodland near Little Chalfont where Winnie the Pooh and Piglet would feel very much at home.
Owned by a builder friend, this provides David with a base camp for bread-baking and wood whittling, foraging and other outdoor adventures for families, small groups and corporate clients.
It’s quite a change of direction for someone who spent 30 years as an IT consultant, but at 58, David is showing no signs of missing the corporate world. In fact it has been a welcome opportunity to rediscover the simple pleasures that played such an important part of his childhood.
As a boy, he loved being outdoors and would spend many happy hours exploring the local woodlands, building camps with his friends. As father to two sons, those camping experiences were fun to share with the family too – and today he is clearly getting just as much pleasure helping other people recapture some of those lost childhood experiences.
“There was woodland at the end of our garden and as a young boy still in short trousers, this provided a wild place to play,” he recalls in a blog posting about his childhood. “A child of the 60s, I found my own amusement. There were a few large trees that were great for climbing, balancing on limbs, that would no doubt now send many parents racing in, to save their children from any potential harm. I’d happily play there in the trees for hours, only to be called in when it was time for dinner.”
Nowadays he delights in guiding families on woodland walks, showing children how to light a fire and cooking over an open fire, perhaps helping to restore people’s confidence about coping in the great outdoors.
Genial, enthusiastic and immensely knowledgable about his natural surroundings, his invitation to families and corporate clients to escape from their computer screens and mobile phones and get back to nature is clearly one that resonates with his guests.
More than 1,000 people have joined him for his woodland wanders, learning about a variety of things on the way – from recognising different trees to appreciating the uses made of different types of wood and the delights of foraging.
“It’s a very primal thing,” grins David. “There are half a dozen different ways of lighting a fire.”
Guests needn’t worry about having to hunt, trap and enviscerate cute woodland creatures though. Although he has spent time in the army – he joined the Royal Engineers as a teenager and spent six years as a surveyor, serving in Belize – there’s nothing military or survivalist about his courses.
He launched this outdoor events business back in 2010 after years of studying bushcraft and leadership skills, culminating in a year-long course with John Rhyder’s Woodcraft School in West Sussex, which he enjoyed immensely.
Teaching experience with the Scouts was consolidated through trips abroad – like a visit five years ago to spend time with Maasai tribes in Kenya’s Rift Valley, which confirmed the pleasure he gets from imparting knowledge to young people.
When he was growing up, he learned through play – building structures and making things, then improving them when they fell down or broke. Those practical skills are still in demand today as a new generation of woodland adventurers learn how to tie ropes, erect hammocks, light fires and make shelters. They might even end up making bows and arrows.
“It’s great just generally for mental health,” says David. “It does everyone a lot of good to be outdoors.”
These events are all about pitching in and getting involved, so even as we speak, the flour, yeast and water is being mixed so that we can try our hand at bread-making.
It may not be the most sophisticated of kitchens and the woodsmoke is swirling everywhere, but we make a decent fist of kneading a couple of small loaves that can be baked in David’s Dutch oven while we discuss the relative merits of hornbeam, burch, cherry and larch wood.
A local lad, David and his friend started to cycle further afield as boys, exploring Black Park and Burnham Beeches before his family moved to the New Forest for a while, helping to cement his love of wild places and woodland surroundings.
So is it the solitude, the sound of the birds, the grounding in nature, the safety of a home-made shelter among the trees that makes this feel like home? Probably all of these reasons, he confirms.
He’s clearly never happier than when rustling up a tasty meal over a campfire, especially if it means having the chance to share the skills needed to enjoy living the outdoor life to the full.
Our bread is beginning to rise rather impressively and tastes divine. The lamb kebabs take only minutes to cook and are equally delicious, all the more so for being speared on hand-whittled sticks and rotated over the roaring fire. Ah, simple pleasures.
But then this sort of experience is at the heart of David’s woodland events, which can be tailored to suit all ages, abilities and tastes.
From rustling up tasty campfire treats to wood-whittling skills and uncovering the magic of trees, he runs a variety of day and longer courses both here in Buckinghamshire and further afield, while his own thirst for adventure has seen him travelling as far away as Namibia to spend time with the bushmen of the Kalahari.
The learning never stops it seems – although the same might be said for his visitors, as they lap up his wisdom on how to make nettle risotto, which berries are poisonous or which trees are best for warding off witches…
Go down to the woods
To find out more about David’s bushcraft courses, including whittling and woodcraft, campfire bread baking and The Art of Fire, or to arrange private family or group sessions, visit his website.
David’s free guided family walks (booking required) are the first Sunday of the month. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
To see David in action, see the Sorted Food Youtube channel
BRILLIANT scholar, poet, philosopher, internationally renowned children’s author – CS Lewis was many things to many people.
And although it’s as the author of his Chronicles of Narnia fantasy fiction that he is best known, for millions of believers it was his inspirational writing and broadcasts about Christianity that had the most lasting impact.
Whatever the motivation for finding out more about the prolific Irish author, a great starting point is the house where Lewis lived from 1930 until his death in 1963, The Kilns in Headington, outside Oxford.
This is where he wrote and worked, where he sat and smoked and debated philosophy and religion with his brother ‘Warnie’ and great friend and fellow fantasy novelist JRR Tolkien, creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Tours of the home are conducted by appointment only, but those joining a small group to explore Lewis’s life and legacy are not entering a museum but a study centre which is also temporarily home to a number of young scholars.
The American foundation which runs The Kilns wanted to honour the author’s memory by encouraging its continued use as a quiet place of study, fellowship and creative scholarly work, much as it was during his own period of residency there.
The Kilns was built in 1922 on the site of a former brickworks and the lake in its eight-acre garden was a flooded claypit.
CS Lewis bought The Kilns jointly with his brother and Mrs Janie Moore in 1930 and the extensive wild grounds would provide the inspiration for the Narnia chronicles, which started off as a tale told to children evacuated from London in 1939.
Although the house had been totally transformed by the time the foundation bought the building in the 1980s, much has been done to achieve an authentic recreation of how it looked during the years when Lewis lived there.
Few authors of fantasy literature are as beloved as Lewis – or Jack, as he was always known to family and friends from childhood. Born in Belfast in 1898, he created an unforgettable, magical world to which readers return again and again, both as children and adults.
He wrote more than 30 books which have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. And of course many of those books were produced here at The Kilns, including the philosophical writings widely acclaimed by Christian apologists from many denominations.
A brilliant academic, he was educated at Oxford University and returned there after service in World War I to become a fellow and tutor of English literature at Magdalen College.
He had been wounded in France during the Battle of Arras and his former friend and roommate Paddy Moore was killed in battle. As part of a pledge the pair had made, Lewis looked after Paddy Moore’s mother and her daughter, living with them in Oxford from the early 1920s.
A full timeline of his life and works also appears on the HarperCollins official website, but it was here in Headington that Lewis and fellow novelist and Oxford academic JRR Tolkien became friends.
They were both active in the informal literary circle known as The Inklings, who for 16 years from 1933 held regular discussions about their work in a corner of the local Eagle and Child pub. The pair also argued about philosphy and religion in the “common room” at The Kilns, where the carpet was ingrained with pipe ash and the curtains fashioned from wartime blackout blankets.
Christened Clive Staples Lewis, Jack and his older brother Warren, or ‘Warnie’, spent long hours in their childhood creating and chronicling the adventures of the inhabitants of their combined imaginary kingdom of Boxen.
Tribute is paid to that early creativity in an upstairs attic room here at The Kilns, next door to the bedroom where young wartime evacuees would hear stories paving the way for the seven Chronicles of Narnia, which were written and published between 1948 and 1956.
Lewis’s conversion to Christianity was not a sudden experience: in his 1955 autobiography Surprised by Joy he likened the process to being hunted down by God, or even being defeated by him in a game of chess.
But his influences were, as always, books and a few close friends, and the final stage in his conversion took place here. By the age of 32 he had become a ordinary layman of the Church of England and began writing his Christian apologetic books, with Warnie recruited to painstakingly type out his handwritten manuscripts.
Lewis also gave a series of talks about Christianity on BBC radio between 1941 and 1944 which brought him wide acclaim, the text of which would later be published in a book called Mere Christianity.
His literary output in these years was considerable and as his fame grew, many people wrote to him – including the American writer who would become his wife, Joy Davidman Gresham, whom he married in 1956.
Their love story formed the basis of the celebrated 1993 film Shadowlands, directed by Sir Richard Attenborough and starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger.
Joy was a New York teacher of English literature and a recent convert to Christianity. Outspoken and witty, she had been corresponding with Lewis for two years before moving to England with her two sons, where they became frequent visitors to The Kilns.
She was divorced in 1954, but two years later her work permit expired and she faced having to move back to America. Lewis decided to marry her and claimed the civil marriage ceremony, quietly performed in a registry office, was a purely legal measure to allow her to stay in the country.
Whatever their feelings for each other might have been at this stage, shortly afterwards Joy was diagnosed with advanced cancer and Lewis realised he loved her and decided to make their marriage public.
The ceremony was performed around her hospital bed and when she was able to leave hospital, she and the boys moved into The Kilns.
Miraculously, her health improved and they enjoyed more than three years together before her cancer returned and claimed her life in July 1960.
Her death hit Lewis hard and tested his Christian faith, as he revealed unflinchingly in a record of his thoughts and feelings throughout the grieving process, published as A Grief Observed.
He himself died on the 22nd November 1963, a week before his 65th birthday. He never wanted his death to be widely acknowledged and he got his way: American president John F Kennedy was assassinated on the same day.
On the 50th anniversary of his death, he was honoured with a memorial in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey, but his grave lies much closer to home in the peaceful surroundings of nearby Holy Trinity church in Headington Quarry, where he and Warnie worshipped over the years.
Inside the church are many reminders of his life – from the ‘Narnia window’ installed in 1991 in memory of children George and Kathleen Howe, who died young, to the small plaque on the pew where the brothers chose to sit.
Another peaceful oasis nearby is a small nature reserve around the corner from The Kilns which is now maintained by BBOWT, the wildlife trust for Oxfordshire.
Whether or not this location played any serious role in inspiring such fantasy worlds as Narnia and Middle Earth perhaps is not perhaps too important. But The Kilns itself provides a restful setting to reflect on the life and legacy of an extraordinary writer whose work was to prove such a lasting and pervasive inspiration to future generations.
Tours are held on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and cost £12.50 per adult and £10 per student, senior (60+), or child. See The Kilns website for details.
THE Kent businessman who invented a pioneering new app to tackle the country’s litter crisis admits it’s been a long, uphill struggle to get people to take his idea seriously.
Launched in a blaze of publicity back in 2015, the idea was a simple one, as Danny Lucas explains: “I decided to tackle the UK litter crisis in a way that had never been done before.
“As a child of the 70s I remembered public information films at school and Keep Britain Tidy logos on every crisp packet and sweet wrapper.
“Whilst that worked back then, it was clear that it had no effect today and I knew a new approach was needed.”
His solution was a simple, free app for smartphone users that allows individuals to tip off their local council with information about litter, dog fouling and fly-tipping. It was accompanied by a two-minute animated education film that could be shown to the kids at school assembly.
By August 2016 Danny was picking up an environmental champions award from the Mayor of Tonbridge in recognition of the contribution LitterGram had had on improving conditions in the borough.
But although he tries to remain positive, two years on he is the first to admit that the scheme hasn’t grown the way he had hoped when he first wrote about the idea of making “hating litter cool” and getting all of the UK’s 433 local councils involved.
“Councils are just not interested,” he says. “Behind closed doors they see us as a pain in the arse.”
Having invested £300,000 of his own money in the project, it’s clear that the lukewarm response has been the source of considerable anger and frustration. As the boss of a multi-million pound business in the construction industry, employing hundreds of staff, this is a man who’s clearly accustomed to getting things done.
The company he owns is the same family-run business he joined as a teenager of 15, and for most of his life he has lived in Kent– the so-called ‘Garden of England’.
“I am proud to be British however when I look around Britain I can’t see what’s great about it any more. Littering has increased by 500% since the 1960s and 48% of the population admit to dropping litter.
“We now spend £1bn per year tackling the problem which clearly does nothing as we are now officially the third most littered nation globally behind countries in the developing world.”
“This is a shocking statistic and purely down to a lack of education and awareness. This has in turn created a culture and attitude across the UK of not caring and has affected the very authorities whose duty it is to maintain standards and set examples. Effectively they now broadcast a message that says “we don’t care” and this fuels the problem.”
Danny was disappointed to find that relatively few head teachers were keen to take up the baton, some insisting that it was parents’ job to teach children about such matters.
Coupled with poor enforcement in many areas of the country, the apathy means that many people become “litter blind”, he believes – because the country is being so trashed and neglected that this is becoming the norm.
Not all council clear-up teams are as efficient as they could be, he believes. That is another waste of money and a cause for complacency, particularly if councils really don’t want to be told about the scale of the problem.
“Councils have to set standards but no one really cares,” he says. “I saw it as a great way to get the kids on board and I thought councils would embrace it.”
The LitterGram Live message of “Snap It. Share It. Sort It” was envisaged as a dynamic and fast-changing service which would include details of the most littered brands, the most active users and the most responsive councils, with enthusiastic litter spotters able to keep up with latest developments on Twitter @LitterGram.
But it hasn’t quite gone according to plan – even though there are dozens of litter-picking groups up and down the country doing their bit to help, and millions of nature and animal lovers doing their bit to highlight the scale of the crisis.
There’s been plenty of publicity in the press and on TV and radio, but that has not translated into LitterGram becoming the “fifth emergency service” as Danny might have wished.
Perhaps even more radical solutions are needed? “Take it off the councils. You could halve the costs and keep Britain spotless,” says Danny. And he’s not exactly joking. But nor is he despondent that the battle has been lost.
“I get phoned up all the time about it, so we are obviously getting the attention of a lot of people,” he says. “One way or another we will get there. The problem is now an epidemic that has a grip on the nation like cancer. If nothing is done, the problem will worsen and our children and their children will be swimming in filth.”
It’s an apocalyptic warning, but even a cursory glance along the average English roadside is enough to demonstrate that this is not empty rhetoric. The problem is there for all to see – and while LitterGram may not have become the quick-fix solution Danny Lucas might have wished for, you get the impression this is one campaigner who isn’t giving up the fight just yet.
THERE’S something immensely restful and soothing about Gregorian chant – and the same can be said of the tranquil surroundings of Douai Abbey in Berkshire.
Here, buried in the depths of the English countryside, is a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery founded in Paris in 1615.
Vespers is sung prayer – in Latin. Traditionally this evening sacrifice of praise to God takes place as dusk begins to fall, giving thanks for the day just past, and although guests are welcome and some services and concerts are well attended, it’s not uncommon to find the monks alone at this time.
Uprooted by the French Revolution, the monks moved initially to Douai in Flanders and settled in England in 1903, when they moved to their current base at Woolhampton.
The Order of Saint Benedict, also known as the ‘Black Monks’ because of the colour of their habits, is a religious order of independent monastic communities like Ampleforth, Downside, Worth and Buckfast.
They observe the Rule of St Benedict, a sixth-century Italian saint who studied in Rome and then turned his back on the world and lived in solitude before founding a monastery at Monte Cassino.
Here at Douai, under the patronage of the Edmund the Martyr (the East Anglian king who died in 869), the monks live a simple life of worship, study and work, centred around six daily services, from matins and lauds at 6.20am to compline at 8pm.
Despite their crow-like appearance when their black hoods are raised – an indication that they are in silent communion with the Lord – they are individually friendly and welcoming to guests who seek them out.
But “listening” is central to the Benedictine doctrine, so silence is an important part of their daily life – and for guests, a welcome reminder of how important it is for us all to escape the incessant hubbub of the modern world.
And so it is in preparation for the weekday service that we attend. Beforehand, individual monks sit in contemplation, both inside the abbey church and on benches around the grounds.
They then file silently to their places in the pews for a half-hour of praise and peace, the two dozen male voices echoing round the impressive arches of the abbey where we are the only other members of the congregation.
The abbey church was opened in the 1930s but not completed until 1993, and is a Grade II* listed building on the National Heritage List for England with marvellous acoustics.
Our simple evening service is without ceremony or accompanying music but is no less moving for that. The individual Latin words may be indistinct or unfamiliar, but the message of praise is clear – and the underlying sense of self-sacrifice and humility which underpins the monks’ way of life shines through.
Douai monks still serve in parishes throughout England and welcome guests on retreats and courses, as well as those seeking space for quiet or study.
There are facilities for conferences and for youth and chaplaincy groups and throughout the year they host a number of concerts in the abbey church.
Guests may take a peaceful walk in the nearby meadow or sit in a small wooded glade at the foot of a statue of Christ. This is a place of peace and contemplation – and a welcome escape from the unrelenting noise and activity of our everyday lives.
For more information about the work of the monks at Douai, see their website.
THE lights on the country station platform are shining, the semaphore signals are at red and a handful of passengers alight in the drizzle.
It could be a scene from the 1960s, but despite appearances we are firmly in 2018 and just reaching journey’s end after an unusual sojourn through the Oxfordshire countryside.
The occasion is one of the periodic “fish and chip” quiz nights organised by the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway – but unlike a country train at a platform like this half a century ago, this one is actually packed with passengers, all of whom seem to be in remarkably good spirits.
It’s the culmination of a leisurely three-hour trundle through the local countryside where teams having been pitting their wits against each other for the sheer hell of it.
There are no big prizes on offer here – but for more than 100 enthusiastic diners, that really doesn’t matter. It’s the experience which counts.
What could be more English than a heritage railway, a pub quiz and a traditional meal of fish and chips? Put them together and you’ve got a sure-fire recipe for success, and this train and others like it are sold out long in advance.
The story of the line’s revival has been covered in detail in a previous post on this site, but the return visit is a welcome opportunity to savour the atmosphere of an evening journey in convivial company.
A team of enthusiastic and welcoming volunteers provide a cheerful and efficient table service throughout the journey as our quiz train ambles towards Princes Risborough and back.
It’s a good time to visit too, because this is a week which sees the railway celebrating the opening of Platform 4 at Princes Risborough station – a long-awaited link up with the Chiltern Railways main line.
Tonight no one’s going anywhere very quickly after the Class 37 diesel-electric engine booked for the service subsides into silence and has to be replaced. But no one on board is too worried as the quiz picks up pace and another heritage engine clanks into place to take the strain.
This one is a beautifully restored visitor to Chinnor, a Class 20 diesel decked out in the distinctive green livery of British Railways which spent its working life in the Sheffield area after entering service in 1961. It was withdrawn in 1990, one of more than 200 “Choppers” designed to work light mixed freight traffic which earned their nickname from their distinctive engine beat, which resembles the sound of a helicopter.
D8059 proves a more than worthy replacement for the short journey to Thame Junction, but as dusk begins to fall over the surrounding fields, all eyes are on the quiz questions until our return to Chinnor is met with the excited hooting of a driver racing up with our fish and chips.
Serving dozens of people simultaneously with piping hot chip shop fish and chips is no easy task, but our grinning hosts are up to the challenge and the beer and wine is flowing freely between rounds as competitors vent their frustration at being caught out by tricky foreign capitals or elusive logos.
By the time the results have been compiled – and needless to say our four-strong team is no match for some of the expert contestants on board – it’s after 10.30pm and the lights are shining bright at Chinnor station.
As the passengers disperse into the night, there are sounds of cheerful farewells, train doors slamming and the smell of diesel on the night air. Surely railway journeys back in the 1960s were never this much fun?
Tickets for quiz night trains cost £19 but the next trip in October is already sold out. See the railway’s website for full timetable details and other special events.
The Beyonder meets waste enforcement officer David Rounding on Buckinghamshire’s front line in the war against illegal dumping
DIRTY WORK: David Rounding investigates a fly-tipping incident at Burnham
AN IDYLLIC single-track lane in the middle of the Buckinghamshire countryside sounds like an unlikely place for a crime scene.
But it’s surprising what goes on in our leafy rural backroads – and for David Rounding there’s sadly nothing out of the ordinary about the location of today’s investigation.
Responding to a tip-off from a concerned local, we’re standing in a small layby on a backroad near Burnham studying a pile of debris dumped at the side of the road.
It’s pretty standard household stuff – a sofa, bed, rug and other assorted bits and pieces. Infuriatingly, it’s less than half a mile from a household recycling centre where the items could have been unloaded legally for nothing.
Instead, they’ve been dumped here – spoiling the sylvan setting and posing a headache for the local council, who will now have to clear up the mess. But David’s on the lookout for clues – and is not disheartened.
The waste enforcement officer is part of a small team employed by Buckinghamshire Council – and he has quite a few weapons in his armoury that can help him solve this latest unpleasant ‘whodunnit’.
FRONT LINE TROOPS: waste enforcement officer David Rounding
“When I started out it was really, really hard to prosecute,” he recalls. But times have changed – and for the past 15 years Buckinghamshire has led the way in the war on illegal waste dumping.
When David took up his job here in 2003, dumping was at a record high and rising, with more than 4,000 incidents a year across the county. By 2013 that had been reduced to under 1,500, partly as a result of an upsurge in prosecutions resulting in substantial fines, compensation payments and even jail.
Sadly fly-tipping is on the rise again – back up to more than 3,000 cases a year locally and costing taxpayers across England more than £57m.
Like other shire counties around London, Buckinghamshire is seen as an easy target because of good transport likes and easy access via the M40 and M25 to deserted country lanes like this one – the sort of idyllic country setting seen in so many episodes of the Midsomer Murders TV series.
From selfish householders leaving mattresses or fridges and rogue traders unloading tyres and plasterboard to criminal gangs dumping waste on an industrial scale, an increasing number of fly-tippers are littering fields, woods, roads and verges with unsightly piles of rubbish like this one.
For nature lovers and local residents taking a ramble or walking their dog, this sort of eyesore raises strong emotions. More than 11,000 fly-tipping cases – six a day on average – have blighted the local countryside in the last five years, costing tax-payers £500,000 a year in clear-up costs.
But it’s not all bad news, and as David Rounding launches his latest investigation, there’s a definite spring in his step.
After starting his career in Halifax he was working for the Environment Agency in 2003 when the various councils in Buckinghamshire first got together to combat the fly-tipping menace.
They realised that proper enforcement of the law was an invaluable deterrent and in the 15 years since the county council and four district councils launched their anti-fly-tipping campaign – ‘Illegal Dumping Costs’ – David and his fellow investigators have successfully prosecuted more than 600 fly-tippers.
As with most crime, a handful of individuals can cause a disproportionate amount of damage to the environment – and in serious cases prosecution can result in imprisonment, as well as hefty fines and compensation awards.
Don’t be fooled by the remote locations, either – in recent years hidden cameras have increasingly helped the team catch the criminals in the act.
REPEAT OFFENDER: John Keenan dumped waste across Buckinghamshire
Like Letchworth builder John Keenan, 33, who was convicted in 2017 after CCTV twice caught him dumping waste from his tipper truck in local villages. Four other incidents of fly-tipping in rural Buckinghamshire and west Hertfordshire were traced back to him and work done by his company in and around London.
Keenan pleaded guilty to two counts of fly-tipping and four charges of failing in duty of care regarding waste he had produced. He was sentenced to 16 weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to pay costs totalling more than £4,700.
The cameras are a welcome boost for the enforcement team, who have seen detection rates improve. “We are becoming better and better at convicting people. If the evidence is there, we will get them to court,” says David. “Since 2010 we have been averaging more than one conviction a week, and they each pay around £1,500 in fines and costs.”
Signs at dumping hotspots advertise the surveillance cameras but a succession of fly-tippers still get caught out. But CCTV accounts for only 40 per cent of the team’s convictions. Eye-witnesses account for another 20 per cent of convictions, with sharp-eyed members of the public equally keen to help catch the criminals spoiling their environment.
There aren’t many things which ruffle David’s composure, but he does get a little irritated by some of the myths which surround fly-tipping – like the claim that fines don’t get paid and costs aren’t recouped.
Last year alone, the team achieved 72 convictions and court-awarded costs of more than £75,000 towards the councils’ clean-up and legal costs, he points out.
“If you look at the evidence the fines and compensation costs do get paid,” he insists – and on top of that there’s the estimated £3m savings made over the past decade because of not having to clear dumped waste and send it to landfill.
Armed with the sort of evidence his team can gather, the net cost of a prosecution may be only around £300. But while nearly two thirds (62%) of fly-tipping convictions are for the act of dumping, the people who produced the waste can be prosecuted too for failing their duty of care if they do not ensure their rubbish is being disposed of legally.
David believes this is something many people may not realise, which could lead to someone unwittingly facing a heavy fine and a criminal conviction after paying someone else to get rid of their unwanted household items.
And he warns that cash payments to strangers are a recipe for disaster. It’s a trend that has been fuelled in the past couple of years by so-called “Facebook fly tippers” offering cheap waste collection services.
The waste detectives have become experts at finding clues to identify the source of dumped rubbish. And although David recalls late-night raids and dawn swoops with police when known dumpers have been caught red-handed, it is the sifting of rubbish for clues which he excels at and which brings 40 per cent of convictions.
SMALL PRINT: David’s team are expert at sifting through rubbish for clues
The enforcement team works closely with Thames Valley Police, which can make it easier to trace a vehicle’s movements when a crime has been committed – and there’s close co-operation in more serious cases involving crooked commercial operators and even organised gangs.
Other crimes can also result in waste being dumped in rural areas, from professional shoplifters disposing of incriminating evidence to drugs stashes and paraphernalia from cannabis farms.
Another worry is an upsurge in more serious waste dumping by organised criminal gangs, and David’s next call is to visit a council site in High Wycombe where lorryloads of waste were dumped – the latest in a series of such incidents across Buckinghamshire in recent months.
Such large-scale, serious or organised dumping is investigated and potentially prosecuted by the Environment Agency, but their resources are hard-pressed and such crimes are on the increase, so David is only too keen to provide any practical help he can.
Clamping down on the criminals is also good for legitimate waste carriers, he points out, who potentially lose millions in business. But although the short-term profits may be tempting for lazy criminals, David is keen to make sure the prosecutions count.
One man was fined more than £1,000 for adding to rubbish which had already been dumped at the roadside by someone else. In January a Slough man was fined £2,200 for dumping 19 sacks of rubbish in Fulmer, and last month a Calvert Green man was fined £2,000 for dumping boxes near Aylesbury.
There have been a number of other successful prosecutions, as David has highlighted on his Twitter account.
“They might think the money makes it worth the risk but they can serve up to five years in prison, and we have jailed a few,” he points out.
To report a fly-tipping incident to David and his colleagues, visit the county council’s web page or the Fix My Street website.
ROADSIDE LITTER: Peter Silverman surveys the problem at Beaconsfield
PETER Silverman is a man on a mission.
It wasn’t always like this. But what began as an observation about the apparently worsening tide of litter on roadside verges around his home has turned into something of a crusade.
It was back in 2010 that the retired financial adviser became aware of specific problem areas that seemed to be being ignored by the relevant authorities.
“The amount of stuff on the verges was monumentally worse than it is now,” he recalls. But part of the problem then, as now, was working out which authority was actually responsible.
National Highways (formerly Highways England) and its contractors are responsible for keeping motorways and trunk roads clean, but in counties like Buckinghamshire, although the county council is responsible for highways, litter-picking is a district council function.
It soon became clear to Peter, now 75, that some spots – like slip roads around the Denham roundabout where the A40 meets the M40 – appeared to be slipping through the net and had been totally neglected.
Part of his frustration was that the authorities appeared to be failing to fulfil their duties under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 S89(1) to “ensure that the land under their control is, so far as is practicable, kept clear of litter and refuse”.
Not a motorist to be trifled with, Peter duly issued a Section 91 warning notice under the ‘EPA’ legislation to the transport secretary, prompting a sixfold increase in cleaning activity by the Highways Agency’s contractor, bringing the southern end of the M40 up to an acceptable standard by June of that year.
But of course the problem didn’t stop there. Eight years on, and Peter’s website pays testimony to his ongoing battle with the authorities – a fight which has been picked up by like-minded motorists around the country.
The problem hasn’t gone away, of course. Only this year another litter abatement order was required before Highways England fulfilled its legal responsibilities to clean up slip roads around the Denham roundabout.
Peter’s frustration lies not only with the agencies involved but with the lack of concerted and effective action from central government – exacerbated by funding cutbacks.
To make matters worse, responsibility for litter is “passed around like a hot potato” by government ministers, he maintains. Whereas an ‘important’ job like health secretary has been held by Jeremy Hunt since 2012, litter has not been prioritised in the same way.
“Jeremy Hunt has been in charge of the NHS for years and every year you get more expert,” says Peter. “With litter, the people do it for a year and move on. It’s the same with the people in charge of the Highways Agency.”
Undeterred, Peter’s website has continued to chronicle his mission to get the authorities to fulfil their duty to keep their land clear of litter – and to do far more to deter those who create it in the first place.
“For decades central government has failed to provide the leadership, funding and resolution needed to get to grips with the problem,” he maintains.
No organisation was charged with the task of policing compliance with EPA duties and he fears that the issue is far from being a top government priority, despite the publication of a “litter strategy for England” updated last July.
“In 2015 a Commons select committee concluded that England is a litter-ridden country compared to most of Europe, North America and Japan,” says Peter. “Our main roads and motorways are in the worst state of all. Local authorities pay less heed to through roads where there are usually no residents to complain about their condition.”
But the national litter strategy promises no additional funding for litter collection and fails to adequately tackle any of the key issues, he believes.
“The litter strategy is a total and utter joke,” he says. There are similarly harsh words for Keep Britain Tidy and many of those working for key government agencies, including ministers and civil servants: “We may not have the kind of widespread corruption you see in some countries but we have our own kind of corruption in the form of making life easy for civil servants, for not having the courage to actually deal with problems.”
There has been much talk about forcing councils to remove roadside litter and prosecute offenders, but he believes many council schemes where specialist contractors can issue on-the-spot fines for littering are only ‘token operations’ to show a council is doing something, with most officers instructed not to issue juveniles with such fines because of magistrates’ “reluctance to give a 15-year-old a criminal record for dropping a packet of crisps”.
It’s not just the roadside litter that’s a problem either, he points out, but spillages from skip lorries and bulk waste transporters. Despite evidence that this occurs on a regular basis, the Environment Agency has only prosecuted one such offending company since 2000, he claims – and that was at his instigation.
“Highways England obstinately refuse to accept that they can and should prosecute these offences,” he maintains.
And apart from our filthy motorways, there’s another major problem when it comes to clamping down on fly-tipping: that despite this being a criminal offence punishable by unlimited fines and a five-year jail sentence if convicted in a crown court, the Environment Agency appears to have prosecuted only ONE case involving large-scale fly-tipping in 2017.
The agency is responsible for investigating larger scale fly-tipping, hazardous waste and fly-tipping by organised gangs. But while Defra minister Therese Coffey referred to more than 200 incidents of large-scale fly–tipping being ‘dealt with’ by the agency in 2017, Peter’s Freedom of Information request asking about the number of prosecutions brought by the EA between 2006 and 2015 showed the number had declined from 96 in 2006 to 26 in 2015.
There’s plenty of tough talking from the EA, which says: “Our specialist crime unit uses intelligence to track and prosecute organised crime gangs involved in illegal waste activity. We are determined to make life hard for criminals.”
But Peter’s research revealed many of the recorded prosecutions were for the mis-management of waste transfer, treatment and storage sites rather than fly-tipping.
EYESORE: large-scale fly-tipping in Enfield in March 2018 PICTURE: Peter Silverman
He explains: “In fact only three of the 30 cases in 2017 were definitely for fly-tipping. Two of these were in effect the same case as two members of the same family were prosecuted for the same incident. Their combined fines were £75,000. In the other case the fine was only £900.
If such statistics sound depressing, the good news is that it means Peter isn’t quite ready yet to stop being a thorn in the side of the authorities – whether that means government ministers and departments, local councils or the Highways Agency.
Sadly, the campaign still has to reach a wider national audience. Despite occasional outings on national TV (he was a guest on BBC Breakfast in April this year), his Youtube broadcast clips (as when he featured on BBC’s Don’t Mess With Me documentary series about littering back in 2014) are still seen by hundreds rather than thousands of viewers.
But there’s clearly huge support for his work nonetheless. The ‘Have Your Say’ section of his website contains hundreds of comments from drivers who share his anger and frustration at the roadside litter scandal – and who realise the battle is one worth fighting.
As contributor John Lindsay wrote in April: “Peter is doing a fantastic job to bring more attention to the litter disease that engulfs our country.
“We all have a choice to either do something about our littered nation or not. We must spread the word to educate our own families, neighbours and friends. By acting together we will leave a better legacy.”
It’s an important message. Peter’s website may testify to the fact that this is so evidently a one-man campaign – but it also reveals that it’s not one he has to fight entirely on his own.
IT’s exciting to see a dynamic new nationwide campaign being launched by a small group of professionals united by a shared passion for looking after our environment – and growing concerns about litter.
Clean Up Britain (CLUB) has been lobbying hard for a national litter campaign as well as inspiring and enabling communities and businesses to tackle a range of recycling and environmental issues, from reducing single-use plastics to clamping down on fly-tipping and roadside litter.
Founded by John Read, who has extensive experience in campaigning, corporate communications and public affairs, CLUB launched its Litter Kills initiative last month with the following message:
The UK has a serious litter problem. Take a look around you – every village, town, city, beach and roadside is blighted with the lazy leftovers of our daily lives.
We’ve been wrestling hard with how to properly ignite the conversation about litter and the damage it does.
In particular, we need to get to young women and men, age 16-30, who don’t even think about litter. This age group, while outwardly professing a love of the planet, recycling and other green issues, over-indexes on littering compared to other age groups.
It’s been ages since a national anti-litter campaign ran which changed littering behaviours, the topic of littering gets no airtime with this audience, and any wider efforts to prompt thinking and behaviour change has been largely ineffective.
Litter doesn’t really figure on their radar. Yet.
We had seen the RSPCA stats – they get 5,000 calls a year about animals injured by litter. Instinctively, we knew that this must be the tip of the iceberg.
We also knew, from previous research, that talking about hurt and dead animals was one of the only ways to ignite the conversation about litter with our target audience.
And so we began looking hard at the impacts of litter on animals, and with help of the RSPCA, the British Veterinary Association and the pet charity Blue Cross, we built the bigger, shocking picture. Our campaign ‘Litter Kills’ was born.
CLUB recognises the images are shocking, but believes that’s necessary:
We need to give people a reason to react strongly to seeing others litter, and make those who do think twice. We have to shift attitudes and behaviour.
We’re supposedly a nation of pet and animal lovers. British households in total host 8.5m dogs and 8m cats. Millions of us care about wildlife and enjoy seeing wild animals where we live, work and play.
Yet our littering habit affects thousands and thousands of animals in a very bad, sometimes fatal, way.
Tragically, the images selected for the campaign are all real, selected from countless case studies of animals injured or poisoned by discarded takeaways, mouldy food or broken glass.
The “litter kills – it’s time to act” message is part of CLUB’s Now or Never campaign which kicked off in Leamington Spa and received widespread local and national media coverage.
And earlier news releases have focused on issues like fly-tipping, another issue close to our hearts at The Beyonder.
Back in March last year, CLUB warned busy residents not to unwittingly pay rogue traders to dispose of their waste.
The message was simple: make a quick check with the Environment Agency to see if they have a waste carrier permit, rather than risking a huge fine for having the waste disposed of illegally. Any legitimate trader should be happy to provide their name or registration number. The agency can be contacted by phone on 03708 506 506).
MAKING MISCHIEF: Alfie the raven is determined to play
ALFIE the raven is in mischievous mood during our visit to Corvid Dawn in Berkshire.
This is not at all unusual, it transpires – and to be fair we were given plenty of warning to watch out for one of the more colourful characters looked after by Aimee Wallis at her wild bird rescue sanctuary.
The captive-bred raven flies free around their rural retreat and takes a very close interest in our movements. But then this is a bird who flies and trots along when the ‘family’ goes for a walk and enjoys playing games like ‘fetch’ and hide and seek (as long as he gets to make up the rules).
Alfie’s clearly in his element amid the motley assortment of other animals to be found in Aimee’s sanctuary, and as we embark on a guided tour there are soon plenty of curious onlookers in tow – a trio of dogs, a couple of rescue lambs from Wales and the neighbours’ children, for a start.
Cutest of the new arrivals is Missy the baby duckling, a tiny white mallard found by a couple on a canal, either abandoned by her mother or dropped by a predator.
The RSPB warns people only to interfere with fledglings as a last resort, and says: “Seeing ducklings and other young birds on their own is perfectly normal, so there’s no need to be worried. Just because you cannot see the adult doesn’t mean they are not there.”
BALL OF FLUFF: Aimee and partner Dario with Missy the duckling
But the couple who found Missy could find no trace of mum and looked after her for a couple of days before bringing her to Aimee.
“They did so well, did all the right things, she’s a lucky girl. They’re off back to Australia at some point so couldn’t really take her on,” Aimee explains.
Missy will be in good company here. The rescue lambs are taking a close interest in her welfare as she settles into her paddling pool and there’s a lot of curiosity among the corvids too – the crows, rooks, jackdaws and ravens who are the main focus of attention at the centre.
MAKING A SPLASH: Missy settles into her paddling pool
Yes, there are hens and turkeys here too, but it’s the corvids that are Aimee’s first love and which prompted her to create the sanctuary in the first place. Before all this she had a career in the beauty industry, though that life seems very distant to her now.
It’s a few years since Aimee’s first encounter with corvids, after she and her mother took an injured blackbird to a bird sanctuary and she became intrigued by the intelligence of the crows and ravens who were kept there.
In fact she ended up working at the centre as a volunteer and the love affair was cemented when she first encountered a blind five-week-old crow called Wonder. But as she began to learn more about the birds she also began to realise that she and the owner had very different ideas about how the rescue centre should be run.
She says: “My first question was when will the birds be released, but it was clear they weren’t going to be. He didn’t agree with nature, he thought the birds were better off with him than they would be in the wild.”
FUN AND GAMES: playing with Alfie
It’s clear that there are plenty of unhappy memories associated with that period of her life, but Aimee doesn’t shirk from difficult questions and has publicly spoken out in the press about her experiences at the sanctuary, which was raided by police in 2015, after she had left.
“The former volunteers were all devastated by the outcome,” she says. “When I first went there I noticed that the cages were not in a great state and there wasn’t a lot of water. I just thought they needed some help so I started volunteering.”
Aimee started releasing healthy birds from the aviaries herself and taking ill birds to a local vet, learning a lot about the birds’ welfare in the process. She was allowed to take two birds with her when she left, but dozens of birds were seized in the police raid and a number had to be put down.
The corvid family includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaw, jays and magpies – all known for their intelligence – and it was clear to her that she wanted to set up her own rescue centre if at all possible.
After moving back home with her mum for a while she worked in a local pub and was able to keep her birds on land there for a year until the pub got planning permission to expand. By then, word had got around about her rescue work, prompting one farmer she also worked for to offer her the chance of establishing a proper base in the country.
That move in November 2017 provided the perfect opportunity to set up Corvid Dawn as a more spacious sanctuary able to offer a proper rescue and release service.
“We were in desperate need of a new base and the farm is run by a lovely older couple,” says 36-year-old Aimee.
WOOLLY FLOCK: the lambs were too small to thrive where they were born
It’s a perfect location for her centre and it’s been a busy few months working on new accommodation for the growing family. It’s hard to keep track of exact numbers, though, with new arrivals most weekends. That all adds to a pretty demanding work schedule – not to mention proving a costly exercise, with so many mouths to feed.
The aim, wherever possible, is to rescue and release birds back into the wild, although some of the more badly injured will be longer-term residents, along with cruelty cases who may have been mistreated or neglected.
Eventually, Aimee hopes the centre will also be able to perform an important educational role, introducing school children to the birds through talks and displays at locations like the Nature Discovery Centre in Thatcham, Berkshire.
Her mission is to demonstrate just how intelligent and perceptive birds can be and, by sharing her experiences of rescuing and rearing corvids, promote a better understanding of British wild birds among pupils.
“They are fantastic judges of character. It’s bizarre – they show jealousy and they have favourite objects,” she chuckles.
SAFE REFUGE: spacious cages are home to a variety of rescued birds
Providing sanctuary to her family of animals and birds has involved some rapid cage-building, although one day she would love to have a free-flying flock of rooks.
For now, large cages will have to suffice. But partner Dario, 33, has been a willing worker, even embarking on a carpentry course to hone his woodworking skills.
An Italian with former experience in the military, he came to the UK to improve his English and had a job locally working with horses when they first met.
There are signs of his hard labour everywhere, from the fencing and cage construction to the newly turned over patch which will soon become a vegetable garden.
MENAGERIE MANOR: Dario with the chickens and turkeys
It’s clear that he loves animals too, despite the hard work involved in almost every aspect of their care.
Alfie is looking down from a lofty perch inspecting us as we wander around his territory, a reminder that establishing such a close relationship with him has been no easy task.
Bred in captivity for the pet trade, he was angry and suspicious and it has taken many, many hours of cajoling – and plenty of slashes from his razor-sharp beak – to win his trust and establish the sort of easy rapport that we are able to witness.
RULING THE ROOST: Alfie keeps a beady eye on what’s going on
But despite the tough times – the tales of animal cruelty and the trauma of dealing with ill and injured animals – Aimee finds people’s compassion and kindess a huge compensation.
The weekend after our visit sees an influx of new arrivals: badly injured baby blackbirds mauled by a cat, a jackdaw with an eye infection, an almost paralysed crow hit by a car.
“The saddest was three newborn baby blackbirds that came in,” she posted on the centre’s Facebook page, where some of her 1400 followers are quick to offer their support. “They all died one by one, despite antibiotics and heat.”
Yet almost in the same breath she is posting: “Can I just say what wonderful people I’ve met through these birds this weekend, really kind driving them to meet me or even bringing them here, really touching to see people show such compassion, thank you so much xx”
FEATHERED FRIEND: Aimee with one of the hens
Alfie is far from being the only star of the show, of course – there’s Ratchet the rook grabbing an impossibly large twig for nest building, Dara the one-legged crow recovering from an operation at the vet’s, and a dozen other assorted corvids clamouring for love and attention.
Not to mention the animals too, of course. “We are busy with farm animals – we are suckers for it, to be honest,” Aimee admits. “We have two little pigs – that was an emergency thing – and two lambs, and some rescue turkeys. And about 23 birds, mainly corvids.”
FEEDING FRENZY: Dario with the pigs
Out here in rural Berkshire, there’s quite a substantial population of wild animals too, including hundreds of rooks, jackdaws and starlings in nearby fields and woods, along with foxes and badgers.
The wild rooks may be a little perplexed by Alfie’s decision not to stray too far from home – but so far the fencing has proved a sufficient deterrent to keep the hens in and the foxes out.
Not that the education process is restricted to children. Many farmers regard crows and pigeons as pests, and dozens of fieldsports videos are dedicated to the merits of different guns and cartridges for disposing of the birds, citing their damage to crops and potential spread of disease as key arguments for pest control.
Aimee doesn’t mind discussing such matters with anyone, as long as they can keep the debate civilised.
HOME FROM HOME: the rescue centre takes shape
“I’m just a normal girl who loves animals,” Aimee insists. Maybe so, but it takes a pretty dedicated individual to lavish this kind of time and attention on such a large and demanding family just for the fun of it.
All the hard work doesn’t go unappreciated, though, judging by the reactions of her feathered friends. And it’s Alfie who has the last word, of course, cackling loudly as we start making moves to leave, and even standing out there on the road to see us off…
For more information about Corvid Dawn, see the centre’s Facebook page.
WINTER’S TALE: an unseasonal icy blast casts a chill over Beale Park
THERE could hardly have been a worse time to visit Beale Park. It’s only a few days after unseasonal March snowstorms have been swept across the UK by the “Beast from the East” – there’s ice in the lake water, the wind is bitter and the few animals who are out and about look as if they would much prefer to be somewhere a whole lot warmer.
Despite that it’s still possible to see just what a lovely location this riverside spot would be on a summer’s day. The landscaped gardens between Pangbourne and Lower Basildon in Berkshire have the Thames as a backdrop – and on virtually any other day of the year that in itself would be a major attraction.
Back in 1956 when Gilbert Beale set about transforming 350 acres of private Thames-side farmland into a charitable trust, it was little more than a track and a couple of ponds.
PEACOCKS ON PARADE: the park’s eccentric founder had a soft spot for the birds
Today the distinctive cry of a peacock is a reminder of just how much the eccentric Gilbert loved the birds – by the time of his death in 1967 at the age of 99 there were over 300 on site. Legend has it that his favourite, a peahen called Laura, followed him everywhere and even rode around the estate in his Rolls-Royce.
Flash forward half a century and nowadays the park boasts three main attractions: the collections of small exotic animals, farm animals and birds; the landscaped gardens and woodlands; and the children’s play areas.
For our chilly March visit it would be easy to be hypercritical. Many of the more appealing creatures are hunkering down out of the chill wind, some of the park is still being renovated ahead of the main season and sections of it feel more like a building site than landscaped gardens.
Icy ripples spread out over the closed paddling pool and everything looks distinctly grey – we are too early for even the bravest flora to be flowering and there’s virtually no colour in the gardens yet.
But that’s more to do with the timing of our visit than any lack of effort on the part of the management and it’s clear that over the years a lot of effort has gone into sympathetically landscaping the surroundings and expanding the range of attractions.
It’s still a family affair – thanks to the involvement of Gilbert’s great-nephew, Richard Howard, and his family, along with a dedicated team of staff, some of whom have been associated with the park from its earliest beginnings.
ANIMAL MAGIC: the story for Beale Park’s transformation
The main appeal is definitely for parents with younger children – even aside from the animals, the big play area is an obvious attraction and the sand pits and paddling pool must be great fun in summer.
It’s worth checking out the park’s website ahead of your visit if you want to find out a little more about their conservation and education work. It’s possible that display boards were in the process of being refreshed for the main season, but we found relatively little information explaining what was actually happening on the conservation front. In fact the website doesn’t tell you too much detail either, although there’s a rundown on all the animals you can meet on a visit, with a note about their natural habitat and behaviour.
The “park guide” leaflet contains virtually no information about the attractions, but you do get a handy map at the gate – as well as a free trip on the mile-long narrow-gauge railway which dawdles through the grounds, pulling four open carriages and up to 64 passengers.
PARK LIFE: Beale Park’s attractions are clearly signposted
Since the trust was formed the bird collection has advanced from a few peacocks to a collection of rare and endangered birds, but again there’s too little information about conservation programmes and what you are actually able to see.
We were captivated by the African grey-crowned cranes, for example, but couldn’t find any information about them on the cage or the website. Luckily a couple of staff were able to help identify them – and the 8,000 followers of the park’s Facebook page may get more regular updates and videos than are available on the website.
CROWNING GLORY: one of the African grey-crowned cranes
The zoological collection has expanded too in recent years to encompass prairie dogs, coatis and unbearably cute slender-tailed meerkats. The larger paddocks are home to large flightless rheas, alpacas and wallabies, as well as fallow deer, pigs and sheep.
There are bugs, spiders and owls too, although again on the day of our visit everyone seemed to be lying low – and outside it was just too cold to fully enjoy the deer park or spend too long shivering at the lakeside.
CUTE CUSTOMER: a slender-tailed meerkat
On this, the greyest of wintry days, the younger customers braving the weather still seemed to be having plenty of fun – and a surprisingly wholesome sausage and mash lunch for two in the cafe was the perfect antidote to combat the temperatures outside.
But Beale Park will be a whole lot more appealing when spring has properly sprung, and we pledged to return once the sun starts shining again and everyone comes out to play.
Full details of attractions, admission prices and other details can be found on the park’s website.
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