The first article that I wrote, some six years ago, about living in this wonderful place was entitled, “Beyond the Noise of Busy Man”, and things have not changed much since. Apart from regulars like the postman, milkman and paper man, plus the weekly visit from the council’s rubbish collection, there are the exotics like the coalman, oil tanker the Southern Electrical meter man. Of course the vehicles belonging to the locals also use our roads. These do the school trips, carry their drivers to work or to the shops or even simply for leisure, perhaps even a visit to the surgery to add spice to our existence.
From this, you probably think that nothing happens here at all, but it certainly does. For instance you will probably have noticed that I am typing slower than usually, this is because I have been updated, or at least the computer has. For me it’s rather like a child beginning to use ‘joined up writing’, it takes a lot of thought, my mouth goes into all sorts of contortions as I battle with IT and XP. For the initiated, these letters mean a lot to them that knows, but for we poor rustics very little.
As a child I remember, if you didn’t like some one, you referred to them as ‘It’, too inferior to be given a proper name. Now of course for them that understands, Capital IT stands for Information Technology. It is a good thing I am typing slowly isn’t it, if you would prefer me to be slower, please give me a shout. I will try to explain as I go along. Another point about school days, we were taught that P came before X; not any longer, it’s XP for the computer. Remember the good old days when P was always before X, as were Q,R,S,T,U,V and W. It’s a good job we don’t get that much traffic up here, how would I cope?
It is not only me that is confused, the fuchsia bushes, buddleias, some roses, green alkanet and many other fairly soft plants thought the spring was on the way and produced fresh, green leaves, only to find ten days of frost and snow. This certainly was a set back, those soft, green, new leaves are now shrivelled, grey-black and sagging waiting to fall off. (First week of March.)
However it isn’t all bad news in the plant world, celandines and primroses are doing very well where exposed to the sun. Also the snowdrops, which have been flowering for two and a half months now are still valiantly holding up their virginal, white flower heads, almost in defiance. Daffodils, especially our original wild one, Narcissus narcissus, in its simplicity is having a wonderful season and is standing up to all the weather can throw at it, while showing that brilliant yellow it can call its own. The other bright colour that was showing here, was the warm, bright red of the cotoneaster berries. A single plant has been trained along our front fence, covering some sixteen feet by four feet. Up to Friday 24th. February its dominant colour was the red of its berries, by Tuesday 1st of March, after a four days of frost and snow showers, almost every berry had gone. Eaten mostly by blackbirds and robins, with the occasional visit from wood pigeons just to help out. So it isn’t only the plant world we must think about, what about the birds that were confused, mated early and are now in trouble finding food for themselves and their young families. Insect life in the form of bumble bees and butterflies that were on the wing in early February have simple disappeared. What happened to them, did they re-hibernate or were they frozen to death?
Life below ground level has not been seriously affected, mainly because of the high residual temperature of the soil. This is born out by the great numbers of mole hills that can be seen everywhere, suggesting a high worm presence. This also means a considerable, active slug population.
Anyone interested in slugs will know that they are lurking just below the surface waiting to greet the first cabbage plants, early potatoes and those first carrot seeds to germinate. It is an unfair world, isn’t it?
Perhaps these notes from the diary will compensate.
3.03.05 Although celandines have been in flower for some weeks, I saw the first real bank of flowers, looking a superb, golden yellow on a S.W. facing bank near the pond in Tollard. This was after ten days of frost and snow.
On Friday 4th. March I saw my first May Blossom in flower at the base of the Zig Zag on my way to Shaftesbury, later that day travelling between Winchester and Alton on the A32 there were large numbers of similar buds bursting, to be seen. Other flowers worth a mention were the white violet seen here, in flower the first week of February and a blue one seen in the second week but in Somerset not Woodcutts. As for birds, we have a noisy, green woodpecker, which serenades us each morning from the largest and oldest ash tree in the neighbourhood. You only have to listen for a short time to understand its other name, the yaffle.
10th. March. Going to something much smaller, Meg and I were looking out of the kitchen window at breakfast time today, when a long tailed tit tried to join us through the glass. When it rebounded from the pane or pain, it must have been concussed, because it thought it was a humming bird, as it tried to hover just a few inches from the wall and had to complete some very complicated manoeuvre to regain composure and fly off. We were just thankful it wasn’t a swan or a Canada goose. Last year I remember writing about a particular robin, which graced our front garden. It was a little larger than your average robin, in fact virtually a ‘giant among robins’. Well it is back again this year and in extremely good form, with a smart new red waistcoat. (It has just occurred to me that he might have used the colour from the cotoneaster berries.)
12th. March. The first tree of any size, seen in leaf this year. A wild cherry growing next to the river Allen, at Witchampton Mill.
Just one last note before signing off concerning water. I have been told that the water table at the south end of the village is extremely low for the time of the year. This information came from a very reliable source, where well water measurements have been taken over a number of years This is after a summer wash-out last year. Does it mean that our rainfall is to come during the summer months in future, or are we to take evasive action if we are to avoid a drought.
Once again may I say thank you for reading the above article. I hope it will promote some interest in our wonderful, but unpredictable countryside. If you it does please help to keep it healthy, watch out for news about a village composting system. You don’t have to be green to be GREEN. Be with it, support IT.
20.03.05 This is in way of a P.S. Firstly, on the 18th. I saw Brimstone butterflies on the wing here. Today I have seen an immaculately turned on Peacock butterfly. Obviously this years model, gracefully fluttering about in the garden. It looked so wonderful it reminded me of Old Shep, (Mr. Jock, Mr Robert Meehan, The Laird of Woodcutts etc.) as he turned out, a dapper young man on his 95th birthday. We still miss him here!
Before I finish, I must mention the wonderful recovery our wild flowers have made, the banks of glistening yellow celandines, the beautiful soft, pale yellows of the masses of primroses and opposite our gate the tiny, dark almost royal, blue flowers of the alkanet when shaded from the sun, with what two weeks ago were black, hanging apologies for leaves, but now leaves of dark luxurious green. Their hispid almost upright foliage now completely recovered.
District Air Rifle Champion
Congratulations to Chris Masson for winning the District Air Rifle competition. All Scout Groups in the District entered the competition, with over 100 Scouts taking part. During the ten rounds of shooting Chris scored consistently high and eventually won with a very comfortable margin.
Trip to London
On 27th February 14 Scouts left very early to spend a day in London. We arrived at Richmond Station at 9.15am and caught the underground to Science Museum.
Once at the Science Museum the Scouts split into groups and spent the morning roaming around the 7 levels. Obviously there are too many things that they did to list here, but the Scouts did say that their favourite parts were the simulators and the interactive exhibits. Sam, Ben and Adam had the opportunity to write their own scripts and then record their own radio show.
Once we left the Science Museum we caught the tube, this time to the House of Parliament. We then walked to the London Eye and ate our lunch at County Hall. Not long to hang about as we had to catch the Duck Tour in the afternoon. The Duck is a World War Two amphibious landing craft that is now used to give tours around London. We caught the Duck by the London Eye. The tour took us past the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, Horse Guards Parade, Florence Nightingales House, Nelson Column, past the Ritz and then Buckingham Palace. After the Palace we headed back over the river and towards the MI5 building. It is here that the Duck turns from a road going bus to a (slightly slow) tour boat. The driver pulled the ladder up at the back, pointed the nose of the Duck down the slope and then at full speed headed into the Thames. The river part of the tour took us up as far as Big Ben and then back to the MI5 building.
After the Duck tour it was back to Richmond Station and back in the cars to Handley. Thanks to Neil, Caroline, Alistair, Dee and Matt for driving and for helping us not loose (or gain) any Scouts when in the Big Smoke!!!!
Q: What do gardeners do in the winter-time?
Well what do they do? One imagines them caged like canaries within the confines of their winter quarters, thirsting for the great outside – for the earth, the sun, the sky, for green things growing – whether they be crop or weeds.
I don’t know what they do, but I know what we are told we ought to be doing! Washing and sterilising flowerpots, refurbishing frames, strengthening trellises and fences, collecting pea and bean sticks, painting the greenhouse – all sorts of grimly virtuous but boring and beastly jobs eminently unsuited to November rains, December gales and January frosts. But there is one job essential and worthy which is also seductively self-indulgent and that is going through the seed-catalogues, making lists and planning next year’s garden, garlanding it with pumpkins the size of the harvest moon, neat rows of smooth carrot-fly-less carrots and turnips like tennis balls. Feet up, log fire blazing, we weave fantasises of a world that has no jays or pigeons, no slugs or snails, no spell of drought, no seeds that mysteriously refuse to germinate or are all devoured overnight by some evil herbivore.
But are you really justified in according such prestige to planning? Is it any use when, in the event you will be at the mercy of such variables as the weather, the unpredictable behaviour of living things and the terrible temptations to impulse buying in garden centres?
Here we are at the end of March and I’m all behind, so I must get going or it will be too late. I hope you’re more organized than me.
A GOOD LAUGH
‘Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone’ – so the famous saying goes. There are many adages telling us that laughter is a good tonic but it is a sad fact that the older one gets the more one has to seek it.
We all remember those younger years when laughter came easily. A child will double up or even roll around the floor laughing at something funny. Teenagers usually find that laughter comes readily, so why is it that the older one gets, the more elusive laughter becomes?
Is it that, once we mature, we are expected to behave more responsibly, or do we actually have more to worry about such as families, illness, finances etc? If this is the case, is it not a fact that, if laughter is a tonic, then we need more of it as we get older?
Any anyone what characteristic they would wish for in a partner and high on the list would be a sense of humour. We seem drawn to a happy smiling face which is the forerunner to laughter.
According to the definition in my dictionary, laughter is ‘To express or manifest emotion especially mirth or amusement by expelling air from the lungs in short bursts to produce an inarticulate voiced noise’.
So, most of us are capable of the expression of laughter, all we need is something to trigger it off. Once laughter starts, it’s amazing how infectious it can be? Lastly if you watch the telly in the next few months and watch a series called ‘Creature Comforts’ I have done some voice-overs for the animals. So try having a laugh.
5th Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment
The inscription at the base of the headstone reads, Peace Perfect Peace, while engraved above these three simple words is the name of Private Edwin Hobbs of the 5th Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment, who died on the last day of April 1915. Similar to my profile on Private Hector Card (see the December 2004 issue of The Downsman), Edwin Hobbs lost his young life (he was just 19 years of age) not in action, but while training to join the conflict, now in its ninth month and with no clear end in sight. A little over a week prior to Edwin’s death, heavy fighting erupted in the Ypres Salient, where the initial assault by the British was partially countered by the German defenders releasing chlorine gas and allowing the prevailing wind to carry the toxic fumes towards the British lines. The psychological effects of this latest method of warfare far outstripped its military effectiveness, for it is the oft produced photographs of lines of gas stricken soldiers, many with their eyes bandaged and with an outstretched hand resting on the shoulder of the man in front, retreating through the mud towards the rear areas, that reminds us, even to this day, of the true horror of the Great War, 1914 to 1918.
From nearby Minchington, Edwin Hobbs’s funeral was the first of three service burials at St. Mary’s, all being concentrated in the north-west corner of the churchyard. It is likely that the service was conducted by the Revd Ernest Hasluck, vicar for Sixpenny Handley (with Gussage St. Andrews) between 1893 and 1925. No doubt as he went through the solemn ritual of the committal with the grieving family and friends at the graveside, his thoughts were with his own son, 2nd Lieutenant Sidney Vandyke Hasluck, serving with the Indian Army and soon to be caught up in the disastrous Dardanelles campaign.
As with all these offensives, so much was expected and so little accomplished – the principal fighting in the Ypres Salient lasted for about five weeks during which thousands died for a gain of eight square miles of what had become a shell blasted wilderness, while in the Dardanelles, or Gallipoli as it is more familiarly referred too, the Turks forced the Allied forces to withdraw, leaving thousands of their number dead, amongst which was the body of Sidney Hasluck.
Postscript. Concerning my profile of Sapper Arthur New (reported in the previous issue of The Downsman), it seems most likely that Arthur was brother to Tom New, destined to die in July 1917, while serving in Mesopotamia with the 2nd Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment, and whose profile will appear in a later issue. For this data I am grateful to Angela Gray and Aubrey New, direct descendants from the son of the late Tom New.