‘If God wills it…the summer rains will fill the wadis…and the salmon will run the river. And then my countrymen…all classes and manner of men, will stand side by side and fish for the salmon….And their natures too will be changed. They will feel the enchantment of this silver fish…and when talk turns to what this tribe said or that tribe did…then someone will say, Let us arise, and go fishing’. (From ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ by Paul Torday)

Living as we do on a high land of permanent pasture, forest and rough grazing it’s interesting to explore the valley below and the river running through it. Not an easy task as most of it is the property of a cluster of landed estates, experts at extracting every available commercial resource from soil, wood and water and keeping public access to a minimum.

We park on a wide verge and follow a private cul-de-sac passing one of the estate farms, isolated cottages and corrugated iron barns, with a modern timber framed anglers rest room at its terminus. We pause to take in the runs and pools on the river where rods will soon be paying top rates to cast their flies. The river here, from a fisherman’s point of view, is a dream come true. It runs wide, fast and free of obstruction, oxygen rich, characteristically chocolate coloured with peat from the bogs of its source on the border with Scotland.

Acknowledged as England’s leading salmon and sea trout river, the Tyne’s restoration to ecological health is a rare success story. The vast majority of our country’s rivers and waterway are in a bad way ecologically, due to scandalously bad management and societal neglect, so what makes this an exception to the rule? The end of toxic heavy industry and clean up on the urban tidal estuary and a purpose built hatchery near the source, that has released hundreds of thousands of fry into the headwaters have worked wonders. Back in 1959 no salmon or sea trout were caught anywhere on the 1,000 square miles of its catchment. Today an average 30,000+ migratory fish pass upstream annually and the average yearly catch along the Tyne’s 100 miles of fishable banks is an impressive 6,000.  

This whole stretch was deserted on the Sunday we visited. The season opens again on February 1st and I discover later that this beat is completely sold out for the year. It will bring considerable income to the estates whose farm and former deer parks frame and define this classic landscape, and their ghillies will be present to police it. This particular 1,000 acre agricultural estate is run from an imposing big house at the valley’s fertile heart. Its core a 14^th century Pele Tower – the most impressive and best preserved in the area – fronted by a Jacobean mansion, largely remodelled in the 19^th Century.

A short stroll away is a modest 18th century chapel where successive family members are commemorated. One of the most recent plaques is for successful regional businessman turned novelist Paul Torday (1946-2013). He was a renowned fisherman who lived at the big house and knew this river intimately. His first novel, written at the age of 59, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, became a worldwide bestseller. It was made famous by the feature film starring Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt & Kirsten Scott Thomas. 

Our winter walk allows for longer revealing views through nature’s architectural forms so more of the landscape and its structures are revealed. A fine view on the opposite bank for instance of an early C19th water powered corn mill, part of the neighbouring estate, in use until 1960. The small stream entering the Tyne there that once powered the undershot mill wheel and much of the old machinery is reported to lie intact within. The miller’s house is occupied and stands a fitting companion next to it.

Our way continues as a public footpath, threading through newly planted deciduous woodland. Eventually we had to divert where a side stream entered, ascending between lines of poplars, up and out of the floodplain onto the back road linking the valley’s scattered settlements.

We turned back homewards along this quiet lane and discovered something tucked into the hedge bank I’d always overlooked when driving by – a stone trough below a spring. In former days a place for draught animals to drink. Shortly after we turned off on a rising farm track to gain the former Borders Railway, running parallel with the road, which once connected the valley to the wider world between 1864 and 1956. We carefully descended the steep worn steps from a bridge, still in good condition, but otherwise marooned in a swathe of estate farmland.

The wooden right of way signs, styles and gates we passed on our walk were all worn and sagging and in need of replacement. Pleased though to see most of the gaps in field hedges had been filled with infant thorn trees in guards, so conservation management measures of a sort are in evidence. The main arable crop being grown here looks like either leaf beat (cattle fodder) or sugar beet. If so then it’s a relatively new cash crop hereabouts, which got me wondering why it may have been planted in such quantity.

Later, I did the research…Most of the world’s sugar is produced from cane grown exclusively in the tropics. Since the mid 18^th century the search for alternatives that could be grown on the European continent has seen development and growth of sugar beet on a huge scale to supplement our ever growing demand for the sweet stuff. Some 75% of the actual beet is water, up to around 20% Sucrose and the remaining 5% pulp, a by-product used in manufacturing animal feedstuffs. The world’s largest sugar beet producer is Russia. That country’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted food security concerns worldwide and put rockets under domestic production. Although banned across the European Union certain key pesticides types are still allowed in post Brexit Britain. For the third year running, HM Government has allowed ‘emergency’ use of Thiamethoxam, a highly toxic neonicotinoid chemical used as a crop pesticide against damage caused by aphids. The RSPB, Friends of the Earth, Wildlife Trusts and other environmental organisations are deeply opposed, citing numerous scientific studies that associate their use with drastic decline in pollinator numbers, especially those of bees. In turn this has fuelled grave concerns over accumulative negative impacts on wildlife and human health.

The old trackbed is virtually all privately owned and consequently became inaccessible to the public after closure. In a progressive and equitable world of course the line, where it still exists, would – through a mix of compulsory purchase and negotiated settlement – be turned into a cycle and walk way. This would open up to  residents and visitors alike a safe, sustainable, healthy and enjoyable way to access our countryside; a way to commute to work or school, and otherwise promote the new green economy that would benefit everybody…But of course I’m merely daydreaming what our 21^st century countryside could be like and not what it is like!

We persevere onward, weaving through encroachments of undergrowth and fallen trees. The last part of this return leg entails a gentle scramble down from the embankment, at the point where we meet a fence boundary, to pick up the official path, crossing a little stream emerging from its arched culvert under the raised trackbed, to thread through an imposing avenue of imposing mature trees to reach the lane and our parked car. A quiet short circular walk through highly managed countryside providing plenty of food for thought about our land, its history, culture and inheritance.

Now in its 10^th year the Montane Spine race from the south end of the Pennine Way National Trail to the northern end – some 268 miles – is in full flow. The race is being run all through this week, with waves of well equipped runners with rucksacks packed with essentials passing us by. Being January the weather’s in full flow too, with wind, rain, snow and freezing temperatures setting the bar even higher than usual for the runners.

The record breaking number of 500 entrants this year come from 22 countries and each have paid a £1,000 entry fee for the privilege. (Tickets sold out within three hours of going on sale). Maybe that’s one motive to keep going and arrive within prescribed times. The Spine Race is a huge mental and physical challenge, making it one of the most prestigious competitions of its kind in the world.

Our old friend and farming neighbour Helen is a keen long distance walker and knows what its like to be out in all weathers, for work or leisure. For the last nine years she’s kitted out two of her old farm buildings as rest point bothies for the hard pressed runner/walkers that the long distance path brings past the holding she runs with her husband, retired forester Norman. He makes the soup that Helen serves up for the contestants who call in – some 70 so far and counting. Helen is awake and there for the runners into the early hours. She sees their bobbing headlight torches emerge out of the pitch black off the fell before disappearing into the steep wooded valley of the burn, emerging again up over the field into their farmyard.

There’s a bed for emergency crash outs, toilet, bags of crisps and bars, with a calor gas heater and tea urn always on. The overflow secondary room across the yard, shared with horse tack and machinery, has a table and chairs for that brief but vital rest and morale booster. Next official check point is our main valley village over the fell 5.5 miles away. After that its one seemingly endless severe cross border trek over the Cheviots before descending to the finish at Kirk Yetholm. Hopefully to be greeted by family and friends and a pint at the Border Inn.

I cycled across at mid day to see the set up. Two middle aged guys, Mark and Jonathan, turned up the same time. Both of them as lean as whippets. ‘Been dreaming about this moment for the last ten miles’ said Jonathan as he sank into a chair, peeled off hat and gloves, and warmed his hands on the soup Helen handed him. A little later, over mugs of tea, they swopped tales of other runners, conditions met en route, and speculated on the way ahead. Hallucinations always a problem for everyone, as much as the amount of mud churned up on the bleakest, most exposed sections. Falling asleep for a few seconds whilst still running also a common occurrence. The two fell in together on this past leg over the north Pennines from Alston and although they might not always stay in lock pace they expect to complete the course anytime between 100 – 120 hours. The leading runners, all veterans of the race, have already got there, clocking in around 85 hours.

Following the damage wrought by Storm Arwen in December 2021 whole swathes of Kielder Forest are still being slowly cleared. The section by Hadrian’s Wall presented problems for the race organisers. Despite work being completed the continuing presence of heavy duty plant and haulage have necessitated a painfully wide detour which has made that boggy section even more challenging. The Spine Race is actually three races. Apart from the main one along the whole length there’s a shorter one of 108 miles from Hawes and a 46 mile sprint at the Derbyshire end. You can find out a lot more about  competition and competitors, or get the app to follow progress, here.https://thespinerace.com/

A dull time of year is January here, out in the countryside, with limited daylight hours, mostly wet cold and windy to boot. But there are a series of everyday highlights to lift the spirits and raise a smile.

In December we’d accepted the hand delivered invitation from one of our farming friends to attend the nearby village’s senior citizens dinner, which took place this week. It’s been the first time it’s been held since before Covid. The committee’s volunteer helpers – a dozen local ladies – get together in the Town Hall and Mechanics Institute to serve parish pensioners a traditional three course meal with wine and coffee. All delivered with efficiency and great good cheer to us happy retirees sat where we chose in rows along trestle tables. Got to know some more local folk and enjoyed the conversations as well as the inevitable tales of ills and ailments. Also liked having a crack at the 20 local and general knowledge questions we’d to complete before the inevitable multi-draw raffle with prizes worth having. We didn’t win anything this time around but were donated a box of mint chocs that a diabetic fellow diner had won, but could not enjoy. A resounding and long lasting round of applause and cheering from the sixty or more of us assembled in the hall drew the catering team out of the kitchen to take a well earned bow.

Back home on another day, Chris, one of our regular contract carriers called with some office supplies. He told me he had to sack a delivery driver taken on to cope with the pre-Xmas rush. Apparently this lad had dumped a couple hundred quids worth of seasonal food into the wheelie bin at the end of a customer’s access track instead of at the house and then failed to leave a card saying what he’d done. The householder only found the food days later when she went to put waste bags in the bin.

Gordon is a retired builder who lives with his wife in a neighbouring parish. He now only works for selected clients and with a lifetime’s skills and extraordinary reserves of energy, we’re incredibly lucky to him at hand. He called by this week to measure up for a new garage roof, replacing weather worn Coroline (bitumen compressed corrugated sheets) with green corrugated steel sheeting. He’ll often stop for a coffee and a chinwag in the kitchen and today was no exception. One story he told me I’ve heard also elsewhere too and it goes like this…Years back, in the early 60’s, the bigger of our two local villages, the one where most of the valley’s shops and services are, enjoyed a reputation as a rock music hot spot would be heaving of a weekend with country lads and lasses from miles around squeezed into the hop held at the Town Hall. Being the Border country they wouldn’t be backward at showing their approval or disapproval of the bands booked to play. An outfit playing one night didn’t please them at all, or rather the singer and lead guitarist didn’t. Not being from the area, he found the reception not to his liking and hard words from the stage were followed by hard blows off it and the evening ended in disarray. The singer ended up in the village’s police station cells for the night, partly to cool off and partly for his own safety. The Victorian cop shop by the river is now a veterinary practice and I wonder if Eric Clapton ever looks back on his early career and remembers anything at all about his gig in rural Northumberland?

I’ll end with a cautionary tale Carrier Chris told me before he sped off. Last year he’d found a fabulous luxury apartment for rent while on his regular rural round in an attractive village (pop.492) over the hill in the next dale (pictured above). Having promised his long suffering wife a break he thought he’d surprise her with a get- away-from-it-all long weekend. Chris was about to whisk her off there when I saw him last year. ‘How’d it go?’ I asked him. ‘Terrible!’ he said. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Well’, he replied, ‘the accommodation was fabulous but we couldn’t go out anywhere without one of the customers recognising me and stopping us for a chat. The missus wasn’t too pleased about that, I can tell you…That’s why we’re off abroad this time!’

Visiting friends in Riding Mill at the weekend who introduced us to a linear river walk, starting and finishing at their local station on the Newcastle to Carlisle line.

This coast to coast line is one of the oldest in the country which opened to passenger traffic in 1835, and still retaining many distinctive listed features. In the middle of the current rail dispute it now lay sadly deserted, haunted by the dismembered automated voice from platform tannoys telling non existent travellers that no services were running.

Walk to the end of the Newcastle platform and you slip into a permissive path that leads down to the south bank of the River Tyne, hurrying to keep its appointment with the city and sea. Wide and steep sided at this point in its eastern course, with eddies and strong currents, it’s a great volume of water. On the opposite bank Styford Hall (above) hoved into view, a country house at the foot of the steep escarpment of Abbeybank woods. The 750 acre estate includes arable, pasture, woodland, rented accommodation and fishing rights on both banks.

The Tyne is one of the best rivers in England for salmon and sea trout. Styford share the valuable fishing beats with the Farnley estate on the south bank. The latter is not a syndicate or day let operation but something in between, running 3 – 6 day lets for 2-3 rods in each beat. They’ve also inserted 15 acres worth of ponds and woodlands into the floodplain in recent years, catering for private trout fishing, complete with jetties and boats.

Reminded of Thomas Bewick (1752-1828) whose childhood home at Cherryburn lies just a few miles downriver and about whom I’ve written in these country diaries before. Bewick, like all the menfolk in his family, was a skilled angler who knew the Tyne intimately. The subject of fish and fishermen appeared often in his workshop’s output of woodcuts.

The permissive path we were following upstream crosses the odd minor tributary. Impressed by the sturdy railway architecture, where a simple high arched narrow culvert in the trackbed has been designed to cope with floodwaters.

The joys of a quiet winter walk like this include a good selection of fungi that stand out from the mass of inert foliage. From clusters of honey fungus working its way effectively through dead or dying wood to bracket fungi in tree trunks, looking like stuck axe heads. Burrs on trunks too, benign tumours erupting at points in the tree’s growth and caused by fungi, viruses or other stress factors.

Along the wider grassier bankside wisps of last year’s rosebay willow herb are easily overlooked compared with the denser darker stands of golden rod, which being more closely packed, manage to hold their strong sculptural form.

We saw few people on our walk but in lockdown apparently this pathway was very popular with locals taking exercise or walking dogs. The sandy bank had slipped or was lurching in places so some care was needed. Debris suspended in the bare branches of willow alder and birch along the riverbank spoke of flooding too. A decade ago a combination of prolonged heavy rain and an already weakened high bank where the river turned at Farnley Scar below Corbridge resulted in a massive landslide. The public footpath we were following disappeared with it and has still not been replaced.

Those wanting to continue the walk now have no choice but to technically trespass on both private land and the railway track bed. Some do, in part to keep a public right of way pressure on those in authority to resolve the situation by safely re-routing the path so the two communities can be re-united by foot. Clearly there’s a serious lack of agreement between landowner, Network Rail and the county council as to the way forward. This I suspect boils down to who will pay to reinstate the right of way. This is a sad state of affairs that reflects the greater national inability to properly value and protect public access for walkers and ramblers in our countryside.

The statistic that only 8% of England’s rural landscape is accessible to the public comes to mind. Post Covid there’s a groundswell of opinion to grow that dismal figure but the entrenched interests of property and land ownership are unlikely to accommodate demand without a determined governmental will to improve matters and there’s not much sign of that happening any time soon. Meanwhile it’s left for people to take action themselves to assert their common law rights, whatever the risks. Strolling back the way we’d come we were overtaken by a young woman walking her dog. A brief conversation confirmed they’d come from Corbridge by the forbidden route. She smiled and we gave her the thumbs up.

A brief diversion on regaining Riding Mill railway station took us on to where the village’s meandering March Burn joined the Tyne, crossing it via a set of concrete stepping posts. This in turn brought us to a grassed track embedded in the steep original riverbank (a Holloway) heading for the water where it disappears in scrub. My friend Rob suggested there must have been a ford here at some point. Back home I looked it up and indeed that was the case. The crossing fell into disuse when the modern pumping station we could see a short distance downstream raised the river level by a couple of feet.

The ford originally gave access to the village of Styford. Earliest reference to the settlement, part of the barony of a Norman lord called Bolobenc, Earl of Buckingham, date to the C12th. Border warfare ravages stymied its growth and the great flood of 1771 sweep away much of the remaining housing stock. Three decades after that the remains of the settlement were cleared away in a landscaping operation that saw the building of Styford Hall and laying out of accompanying riverside parkland.

Moors are a stage for the performance of heaven /Any audience is incidental (Ted Hughes)

Gale force winds, heavy rain showers becoming hail, breaks of blue in rolling mass of grey cloud, kicked through by legs of light picking out roads, glistening roofs and white highlighting far horizons of wind turbines. Just the weather for a post Christmas family outing along Hadrian’s Wall.

Picking up where we left walking the wall with grandchildren (12 & 9) earlier in the year, but this time with parents, we set off east from Housesteads fort heading for Sewingshields farm. Suitably wrapped, heads down, warming by working our limbs, with gusting westerlies riding our backs by way of encouragement.

The Nag Burn runs rapidly from its culvert under the wall, which is here at its widest and most impressive point, some 3 metres plus. This would have been the fort’s main water supply for drinking, washing and bathing. The great two tower gate that once stood here dates from late in the Roman occupation, in the 4^th Century AD, and was the principal ‘passport’ at this point in their great border wall. The fort’s nearby north gate gives on to a steep pitch of the dell: fine for cavalry but unsuitable for most everyday through traffic.

We warmed up gaining and losing height over the first two compact ridges that the wall rides. The huffing and puffing stage before you get into your stride. The wall then leans away northwards with a steep twist down past Kings Wicket, where a permissive path swings back westward along the shallow valley. This was once a rural highway in medieval and Tudor times, mainly for moving stock, and a dangerous one it must have been, here in the heart of lawless Reiver country. A branch of the powerful Armstrong clan set up home in the ruins of the fort at that time, hence the name Housesteads for the place the Romans knew as Vercovicium.

This section is mostly well maintained classic field wall, in the care of the National Trust and English Heritage. It is built on top of the Roman foundations as the original is long gone. The sheep and cattle appreciate the stonework as a welcome place of shelter, as a mass of droppings along this lee side demonstrates. Off to the north, isolated on bare moorland and bog a traditional stone walled stell, or sheep shelter could be seen.

Onwards and gradually upwards to attain the proud summit at Sewingshields Crags, with panoramic view stretching for miles and miles in all directions. The reflective waters of Broomlee Lough draws the eye northwest, while the broad scree at one’s feet presents as an awesome tumble of glowing pale rock. I was intrigued by the rebuilt field wall parting company here at the summit from a fragment of the original masonry, which then gradually slides underground and is lost from sight once again.

So strong was the wind force that some of the photos I took with my phone were unusable due the inability to hold a steady hand. We would have progressed further to the modern day farm at Sewingshields, which was in sight, but the family had had enough and were ready to head back. I waved back assent, touched the trig point, absorbed the vista one more time before facing the wind and catching up on the return.

The wild weather and constant atmospheric changes charged this particular outing with a sense of elemental drama, highlighting its stunning setting and harsh beauty. Took a while to get into it but once started I didn’t want it to finish. A fair weather walk would have been pleasant and satisfying enough, but this wild winter walk was exhilarating in exercising both body and imagination.

Post waterworks excavations we took delivery of two dumpy bags of gravel to resurface the yard drive entry. The driver showed me the stones before using the hydraulic crane to lift and drop the load. They’ve recently changed suppliers to one that sources its stones from the beach at Seaham on the Durham coast. There is a very small amount of crushed shells amongst the aggregate. (Less than 1% by my calculation) Consequently some very fussy customers have refused to take delivery. Our young driver was bemused as we were. He’d even joked with one such customer that she should look on the bright side and encourage her children to look out for fossils that might be in there too. She was not amused.

Boxing day saw us in company with the Newcastle branch of our extended family taking to the coast road on an impromptu trip to the seaside at Tynemouth. Not being the only folk to have the same idea we were lucky to find a parking space on Grand Parade. Wearing sunglasses against the sharp low light, we descended the narrow set of concrete steps to the welcome freedom of Longsands beach.

A panoramic picture captures a mass of walkers and only the fact that everyone was dressed for warmth would differentiate us from a mid-summer crowd of holidaymakers. A group of hardy surfers in wetsuits were out among the gentle waves, optimistically seeking enough impetus for the ride back to shore. Spotted a lone metal detectorist in conversation with one of the scores of dog walkers striding the strand. A lone oil tanker riding out its wait before coming in to dock on the Tyne, was the focal point to all this human perambulation, set on the calm sea under a near cloudless sky.

At the other end of the long wide beach we climbed back up, overlooking the old tidal lido, to emerge by the silhoutted remains of castle and priory that dominate the headland here. A clutch of deserted striped deckchairs and varnished benches cluster here with commemorative bunches of flowers strapped to them.

We ambled down one side of the old high street before returning on the other. Cue fish & chips. A well practised team of cheerful Geordie lasses dispensed them to the a patient queue at Marshalls and we elected to eat in. I loved the formica tables and green plastic bucket seats, not to mention their old great packaging (above) Most of all, the elegant round plaque in the window put up by the town’s historical association. It informed us that ‘ Rock star guitarist Jimmi Hendrix bought fish & chips here to eat on a bench outside after playing the Club A-Go Go in Pilgrim Street Newcastle on 10^th March 1967’…. Enough said.

‘There is one, even Jesus Christ, who can speak to your condition’ George Fox

In my former day job, tour guiding at Lancaster Castle, I’d often explain the place’s connection with George Fox, the C17th religious revolutionary who faced trail at the assizes and was subsequently gaoled here for being ‘troublesome to the peace of the nation’. The firebrand preacher and his followers were viewed as underminers of the class system who thee’d and thou’d everyone regardless of rank; treated men and women as societal equals; refused to recognise the authority of the established church and wouldn’t swear oaths or bear arms. Self styled ‘children of the light,’ they were seen as extreme non-conformists who suffered persecution and imprisonment until religious toleration from the late 1680’s eased their condition and helped merge them into mainstream society.

The movement’s charismatic founder George Fox (1624-1691) was a self-educated itinerant preacher with extraordinary self-confidence and resilience. Inspired by God given inner light or ‘openings’ the charismatic young man must have found his apprenticeship as a cobbler useful in effecting running repairs after travelling on foot over for many miles on terrible roads, staying at safe houses hosted by followers. Despite many setbacks the weaver’s son from Leicestershire effectively founded and led until his death a highly organised grass roots movement that would become known as the Religious Society of Friends. The contemporary name of ‘Quakers’ derived from the elated physical state of its most devoted followers at meetings. Forbidden by law to establish themselves or preach in towns Fox and his associates concentrated operations in the remoter parts of the north of England where it was more difficult for civil or church officials to monitor or suppress them. Hence the great outdoor gatherings on Pendle hill in Lancashire and Firbank Fell in Westmorland in the summer of 1652, during the Republican Commonwealth, which would mark the body’s establishment.  

The young Fox abhorred the licentiousness, earthly vanity and wanton entertainment of performers he witnessed in his youth. With a wry smile I suggested to Kim we visit Firbank Fell on the way back home from a recent day trip to Kirby Lonsdale. The Old Smithy in that attractive Lunesdale town is a well preserved listed building that dates from Fox’s time. Odd as it may seem, this is where we travel two hours to in order have our respective hair expertly cut every three months or so by an old associate from Lancaster days Alex Toubas, whose salon now occupies this wonderful barn like space. En route home we’ll often go for a country walk, drop by a favourite nursery, garden or gallery, discover a new historic site or call in on old friends.

I wanted to introduce Kim to an unusual and little known heritage site, taking advantage of the good weather, before predicted snow and ice arrived. ‘Fox’s Pulpit’ on Firbank Fell where he preached to a huge crowd is still a remote spot, accessed by an unmarked lane off the Sedbergh to Kendal road that climbs and twists its way up past a farming hamlet to the fell summit.

There’s little room on arrival to park on a laneside hemmed in by drystone walls. The small field here reveals itself as an abandoned graveyard, with one lonely gravestone the only obvious clue to its origin. The little chapel that once stood here was demolished following a violent storm in the winter of 1839-40 and was rebuilt on the other side of the fell. The rock from which Fox addressed the mass of ‘seekers after truth’ on that summer’s day is an impressive natural feature, now marked with a memorial tablet, erected to mark the tercentenary in 1952.

Fox later described the event in his ‘Journal’. While others were gone to dinner, I went to a brook, got a little water, and then came and sat down on the top of a rock hard by the chapel. In the afternoon the people gathered about me, with several of their preachers. It was judged there were above a thousand people; to whom I declared God’s everlasting truth and Word of life freely and largely for about the space of three hours.‘

We enjoyed a clear sky view over the lush wide valley southwards. In the other direction stretched a landscape of further slopes and hill tops with no discernible habitation in sight. Our ears became attuned to today’s multitude – not people, just sheep and the faint steady hum of unseen far away vehicles. The subsequent lonely drive from here to join the motorway down at Tebay is a fabulous scenic drive to match any other, whatever the season. A backdrop of the distinctive Howgills to the west and the eastern extremities of the Lake District hills the other side, with west coast railway, motorway and river Lune overlapping and threading through the gorge alongside us, all on different levels.  

No time today to introduce Kim to another highlight of ‘Quaker Country’ in the valley below Sedbergh, where the country’s second oldest Quaker meeting house (1675) is found tucked away by a farm at Brigflatts. Years ago I gave a reading in that beautiful peaceful spot, partnering the recorded voice of the late Basil Bunting, co-reading his celebrated poem Brigflatts, a work inspired by his time living here as young man. Our live event was part of the town’s annual arts festival, the brainchild of locally based sound sculptor and graphic designer Andy Chapple, who mixed and played the live and recorded soundtrack on the day.

Life shorn of essentials – heat, light, food and water – makes for a grim state of affairs. On the macro scale that’s the reality that is facing so many people this winter. On the micro, personal scale we faced our own domestic emergency last week. When Kim ran a bath on Thursday night and no water came out the taps we knew we were in trouble. Like most of our rural neighbours The Corner House is on a private water supply. A spring in the hillside, some 400 yards away, in our neighbouring farmer’s field, across the single track C road that links us to the world. The spring supplies two family households at the farm as well as us. As Southridge has just had a new borehole sunk to meet the increased needs of supporting their beef herd so we immediately wonder if the two events were connected. But no, they were not, of course and it’s only our place that’s affected.

Gravity alone delivers the water to the kitchen, from where it has to be pumped to the holding and header tanks up in the loft. The pump runs through a litany of sounds each day and the one it was making that morning was not sounding good. That’s because the supply, never strong, must have dwindled to a trickle causing the poor old pump to overheat and die. We disconnect and start dialling. Next day Lady luck brings salvation in the convivial form of local plumber Nigel to our door.

After a brief Q & A he and I go up to the tank, set in the ground below the hill crest where the spring water is stored. I say hill, but in reality it’s more of a gradual incline. And that could be part of the problem, as there’s little gravitational force at the best of times. Stepping over a corral of barbed wire we lift the metal cover and discover the 2,000 litre capacity tank to be full and the water clear.

At the top of the concrete chamber there’s a ceramic pipe outlet, acting as a run off to supply veteran ceramic watering troughs for stock just downhill. In summer the line often runs dry and animals – frog or mole – have been known to creep up the pipe’s course to fall and drown in the tank, sometimes even blocking the outlets. But no, there’s no discernible blockage now. We lower the metal lid and return to the house to puzzle it out.

Clearly it’s a pipe problem. A leak, or more likely, leaks somewhere. Chances are it’s a metal pipe in the field. Jamie, our old school farming neighbour, gets involved. The pipework could conceivably date to when the cottage was built, as the farm’s shepherd accommodation and barns, back in 1878. Next day I help Jamie search for any giveaway extra wet spots, find none but he goes on to mark the course with wood poles, and suddenly a continuous slight indentation in the ground is revealed. Is it straight all the way? Did modern material replace metal where it crosses the road and/or enters the house? Has the accumulated weight of loaded timber wagons and gravel lorries back and forth from the forest damaged the pipework under the tarmac?

Nigel gets on the phone. He’s direct and talks the technical talk. ‘I’ve a house with no water’ he starts and it goes on from there. (He’s not really the sort of guy to take no for an answer). Twin brothers from a local water engineers business drive up in a Landrover, pulling a compressor, and between them they blast 700 litres of water back up through the system. Disturbed fine silt clouds the header tank on the hill but nothing gives otherwise. The lads pack up and go.

Meanwhile we carry on as we did during the blackout caused by last winter’s storm. (See ‘Arwen and After’ December 2021 entry) We’re back utilising water from the garden and house butts and filling our carriers with drinking water from the yard tap up at the farm. By Monday Nigel and his electrician Kevin (another neighbour from down the road) have taken out the old pump and rigged us up with a temporary plastic tank and second hand pump out on the garden path with pipes feeding in and out, which we’re shown how to work. This way we maintain a daily supply. Takes 2.5 hours to fill and only 12 minutes to empty.

Jim arrives with an all singing all dancing mini-digger he’s borrowed from a family member to do our job. Exploratory excavation at the field edge where it meets the corner road verge reveals a join of metal pipe and MDPE (a.k.a. Alkathene) blue pipe that carries the supply under the road. Phew!

This excavated final length of metal pipe is like a flute – lined with holes! It’s a wonder we’ve received any water at all in recent times. If it had been metal under the road they would have had to try sleeving the new pipe through the old one or got special kit in to ‘mole’ a new tunnel through, which would have been very challenging. The worst case scenario would have involved a road closure order and didn’t really bear thinking about.

The small bucket of the digger in Jim’s expert hands made for rapid trench work across the field. Luckily there were only a couple of buried rocks in his way. Below a thin layer of topsoil the ground is revealed as a shield of dense clay.

Curled slabs of it, like scoops of butter or ice cream, start to bank up either side as the machine on its caterpillar tracks advances and the new blue pipe is laid in its wake up to the tank. At that end a bend in the old metal pipe is unearthed, dense with years of accumulated limescale, a metallic hardening of the arteries, restricting free flow. An occupational hazard of hard water areas like this one.

The road is at its widest outside our house where it turns sharp left and Jimmy has just enough room where tarmac meets our side’s kerbstone to intercept the pipe and divert the new alkathene piping through the yard to the garage, where ta pump and storage tank will be set up. In the process he uses a sonic detector to locate the underground electric supply cable and carefully works around it with a shovel.

Nigel is not just a skilled plumber and problem solver but also a canny project manager and negotiator who puts everybody’s minds at rest as to what’s happening and why. (‘It’s a pig of a job alright’) We agree between us all that the new junction he’s proposing to fit will be a joint affair at the lowest point in the tank. Previously ours was lower than the farm’s meaning their two households (father’s & son’s) would run out of water first in a drought. Jamie is subsequently happy to contribute to the cost. This whole operation will be a dear one, with all the necessary major work involved spread over many days.

The immediate crisis passed we are reconnected within the week and with a significantly increased flow of spring water. We now no longer have a noisy pump in the kitchen, that could be heard labouring away all over the house, but instead we’ve a more powerful pump, with a big tank, set up out of earshot, in the workshop/garage. The internal reservoir means we can check the flow at this end for the first time ever. Electrician Kevin’s put in a new circuit for the garage and laid cabling up to the loft to power a new float switch to regulate the stop and flow.

After a full week of activity there’s still work to complete, most of it concerned with making good after all the disruption and re-routing to and from the garage. This week Jim returned to fill in the field trench, made more challenging by the weekend’s rainwater that’s drained into it and the intractable nature of the great lumps of clay that will take an age to settle, even after being tamped down by the digger’s wide bucket head. Three dumpy bags of gravel were delivered last week and Jimmy will spread the stones across the yard – skillfully using the widest bucket as a brush – once the last of the new pipe has been laid in its trench, in the front garden, outside the house.

In my latter life lived in ‘This Other Eden’, despite the odd exception to the rule, am always happy to be reminded of what makes our rural community so special. In manifests itself in the form of old fashioned virtues, tried and tested on the tenets of good neighbourliness and mutual self interest, where expert artisan skills are coupled with humorous and open dialogue to get things done.

Jim, Kevin and Nigel have been our three musketeers. When thinking through and suggesting solutions to the problems of last week Nigel said that as country people he knew we understood where he was coming from (we did) and that whatever he proposed to do for us, he would do if it were his place. And you know you believe him, count your blessings, and smile.  

Our landscape contractor, Chris, came to give the east end’s hawthorn hedge its annual trim recently. We keep it high, not just for privacy but as a windbreak for the rest of the linear copse, house and garden. Didn’t want a formal agricultural straight topping but a softer more undulating one instead, which assistant Charley managed with his long blade electric trimmer.

Kim wanted to give the vegetable garden and greenhouse more light and space so we sacrificed some tree cover at the top end. The willow was starting to push the field wall out too. A severe cut of the two main trunks leaves just a few shoots and these will thicken and develop over the next few years to gradually replace the lost limbs.

More reluctantly, we took the neigbouring alder down and its trunk is now cut into logs and stacked to dry. The exposed grain has a distinct orange/red appearance and once dried are rated a good burn for any stove. Like the willow alder will pollard but growth will be much slower.

Raked and brushed most of this year’s leaf fall where it had piled up over gravel and grass and shovelled them into an old gravel dumpy bag, and dragged it to my leaf mold pile next to the newly decapitated willow tree. The idea was to first take the two years worth of leaves that had been composting to hummus under its cover and put that on the vegetable boxes. Alas, it was not to be. My fork bit into a fibrous tangled mass of fine roots…the willow had long since beat me to this food source! Lesson learnt I now re-bagged the new leaf crop into a cavernous black plastic bag and sealed it down. That will both warm it, help break the tissue down and most importantly stop the leaves being devoured by the hungry roots.

Have also donned the wellies and wielded a net in the wildlife pond to fish out leaves from the neighbouring oak that have fallen into it. Too many of them in a pond quickens the gradual silting up process when they sink to the bottom to rot. 

All the cut willow stems are now on the bonfire pitch in our field. The birds have done a strip search for grubs and insects while the current flock of our neighbour’s hog ewes have been assiduously nibbling away at all the buds and leaves they can stretch to.

Willow accumulated from the latest cull will make easy work for the chipper, as the wands and branches being slender, straight and knot free go down its throat as smoothly as ice cream down a human’s. I’ll continue to fill the dumpy bag with these good quality easy chippings which will be used for mulching round the garden and occasionally adding to the compost mix.

As we move into December I pick the last fruits of autumn, the little Christmas pippins, getting them in before birds finish them off. Nothing much to look at and they still cling to the bare branches. I love these cox like apples as a daily snack – they’ve a superb crispy sweet bite.

Out front, the crop of red berries shine out against the dark leaves of the holly, a cheering sight when the hours of daylight are so rationed.  Not until they are starving will the birds venture to devour them.

Welcome to the quiz!…Here’s are 5 of the questions.

1] On 2^nd October 1948 the RAC staged the country’s first ever grand prix at a recently decommissioned wartime RAF station in rural Northamptonshire. Today the course still hosts the British Grand Prix. Name it.    

2] Alauda arvensis has been celebrated in an ode by Shelley and a musical composition by Vaughn Williams. By what common name do we know this bird?

3] The Meade family founded England’s leading organic dairy. The grounds around their Somerset creamery and farm have also become a tourist attraction, as the country’s biggest certified organic gardens. Name the geographical location that gives its name to both the product brand and gardens.     

4] Which traditional countryside craft centres round the skill of ‘pleaching’?

5] Two of the 39 historic English counties contain English rivers in their name. Name both rivers. Clue: One is tidal, the other a freshwater tributary.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

I recently gave the 2022 ‘England and the English Countryside’ table quiz to the Northumberland branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England – CPRE (est. 1926). The setting was the Badger Inn at Ponteland, near Newcastle.  A large yet homely venue with great staff who helped us set up the function room for the evening’s entertainment. Delighted we had such a good turn out, despite the filthy weather, with all tables taken and teams sorted.

Best of all, once we’d got going and the scores started to come in, I was relieved that having a long lead in time, with chance to revise and re-balance, had properly paid off so I could now relax and enjoy the experience. The average score was an all round high across all five rounds, with questions covering history, geography, art and science, sport, entertainment, natural history and literature.

The picture round asked teams to identify 12 popular attractions in England – from the Jurassic Coast (pictured) to Kew Gardens – all of which are UNESCO world heritage sites. I like my quizzes to be challenging, accessible at best, guessable at worst, calling on teams to pool their collective knowledge. Best of all the participants seemed to enjoy the whole experience and were absorbed by it. There was a dead heat for first place and we left it at that, with the honours shared. Laughter, applause, conversations and new friends made. Perfect!

I’ve been a member of CPRE for some years now and on moving to Northumberland I wanted to do something that would help, other than being a member, so after attending a CPRE organised talk I offered my services as a quiz setter and presenter. The offer was gratefully accepted and I set to work, finding a venue and sorting the questions.

That first quiz was held in Hexham, at the County Hotel, just before the first Covid lockdown in February 2020 and proved very popular. After that they were reformed and held online during the pandemic. This then was the first real life pub quiz since and – like live performance – it proved a welcome return to good old social interaction. Team quizzes did not work half as well online when at a time when you could not socialise outside your own household and team numbers were lower, with less of wider shared knowledge to draw on.

Annie, the part time branch secretary, is a powerhouse who gets work actioned with charm and efficiency and is always a joy to work with. She and husband Steve alongside other committee members got everything sorted front of house, organised a raffle and prizes, and Annie also said a word or two about the charity and its work both nationally and locally.

Having Kim by my side to do the scores and help co-ordinate with our hosts made a big difference to the quality of the presentation. Everyone left the pub in the best of spirits and I’m already starting to devise and log more questions, on the same theme, for next years quiz.

Answers: Silverstone / Skylark / Yeo Valley / Hedgelaying (Partial cutting & laying of stems to promote growth) Northumberland (Humber) & Cambridgeshire (Cam).