My father the gardener
I come from a family of gardeners. My siblings tend their gardens, making them beautiful or fruitful, sharing with me crops of the biggest redcurrants you ever saw and generally humbling me when I consider the contrast with my pathetic efforts.
My father was a gardener too. Having fled Nazi Germany as a boy, he grew up in the Middle East and one of his various jobs was in a plant nursery, in a small village near, now a suburb of, Tel Aviv.
Maybe that was where he discovered his love of plants. His amazing memory categorised and stored their names, what was indigenous and what grew in which type of soil. Coming to England via Liverpool Docks as a young man, he ended up living near Kew Gardens and spent many evenings after work strolling the grounds and greenhouses, improving his knowledge of the exotic and the banal.
Growing up, we always had a busy, happening garden. There were seedlings, polytunnels, fabulous crops, plants going in, plants coming out, according to the season. Cuttings taken on holidays would be planted and nurtured at home, delight taken when against the odds they survived. Our garden was aflame with Cana lilies, before they became a staple of urban roundabouts; we tended fledgling coffee plants, figs and olives.
Personally, I preferred a book, a toy, or a water fight in the garden. Whenever I offered to help, I would be asked to weed; my heart would sink and I would slope off as soon I thought that I was unnoticed. My parents got around this by giving me my own little garden patch to tend. When I weeded that I didn’t mind so much.
In many ways, my father’s life story reflects the twentieth century history of Europe. He once said to me that as a displaced person, his garden was the closest thing to roots he had. Even when elderly, he managed it himself, trussing up tomato vines in the greenhouse, persuading his huge and eccentric lawn mower to cut his large lawn, and managing his roses. More recently, he took pleasure in just being, watching the leaves and buds unfurl, a new summer’s crop develop.
I will always think of him, walking up from the garden to the house, the sun on his back. May he be happy in his garden for ever.
Hans-Hermann Bertold Neustadt December 1925 - July 2014
Saturday 30 August 2014
Summer in and around Bucks
The summer holidays are here, and whilst the kids can throw cares to the wind, we must think how to fill the days if we don’t want our children to slump in front of the telly or be a screen bunny for the next few weeks.
So here are my ideas for some ‘Out and About around Bucks’ days.
On a sweltering, sticky day, pond dipping at Denham Country Park ticks the box. Take a net (or buy one there), a bucket, some flip flops and a good book and sit on the bank of the River Chess with tea from the cafe as your kids terrorise the local guppy population. The river flows through trees here, creating an oasis of cool green even when it’s gaspingly hot everywhere else.
It’s beautiful to walk into the Chess Valley from Chorleywood House. Crossing the water meadow towards the river, you pass a community of green woodpeckers, with their distinctive swoop weaving through the trees. If it floats your boat, play pooh sticks from the bridge. Alternatively, follow the river to the watercress beds, buy freshly picked peppery cress from the farm to take home for a very English tea and ice creams for instant sustenance. Take swimmers for a dip in one of the river pools.
A favourite day is spent cycling to Chalfont St Giles with lunch in the garden of the Merlin’s Cave. Fairly typical Pub fare, friendly people and a nice place to sit. You can also hike there from Chalfont St Peter along the Misbourne, or across the hills from Amersham.
Afternoon tea and pick-your-own fruit and veg at Peterley Manor Farm in Prestwood gave us the nicest afternoon we have had this year. Cycling in Hodgemoor woods with a packed lunch is lovely as is a dip in the outdoor pool at Chesham. Seeing the birds at Stockers Lake by Rickmansworth Aquadrome is fabulous, particularly if you follow it with a visit to the Cafe in the Park. Picnicking by the Thames in Marlow, watching hares cavort through the gathering dusk in Cookham and walking up to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang windmill from Turville are all old favourites.
Wendover Woods, College Lake, Coombe Hill.....Writing this, realising all there is to do, makes me worry that the summer holidays are going to be just too short.....
The summer holidays are here, and whilst the kids can throw cares to the wind, we must think how to fill the days if we don’t want our children to slump in front of the telly or be a screen bunny for the next few weeks.
So here are my ideas for some ‘Out and About around Bucks’ days.
On a sweltering, sticky day, pond dipping at Denham Country Park ticks the box. Take a net (or buy one there), a bucket, some flip flops and a good book and sit on the bank of the River Chess with tea from the cafe as your kids terrorise the local guppy population. The river flows through trees here, creating an oasis of cool green even when it’s gaspingly hot everywhere else.
It’s beautiful to walk into the Chess Valley from Chorleywood House. Crossing the water meadow towards the river, you pass a community of green woodpeckers, with their distinctive swoop weaving through the trees. If it floats your boat, play pooh sticks from the bridge. Alternatively, follow the river to the watercress beds, buy freshly picked peppery cress from the farm to take home for a very English tea and ice creams for instant sustenance. Take swimmers for a dip in one of the river pools.
A favourite day is spent cycling to Chalfont St Giles with lunch in the garden of the Merlin’s Cave. Fairly typical Pub fare, friendly people and a nice place to sit. You can also hike there from Chalfont St Peter along the Misbourne, or across the hills from Amersham.
Afternoon tea and pick-your-own fruit and veg at Peterley Manor Farm in Prestwood gave us the nicest afternoon we have had this year. Cycling in Hodgemoor woods with a packed lunch is lovely as is a dip in the outdoor pool at Chesham. Seeing the birds at Stockers Lake by Rickmansworth Aquadrome is fabulous, particularly if you follow it with a visit to the Cafe in the Park. Picnicking by the Thames in Marlow, watching hares cavort through the gathering dusk in Cookham and walking up to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang windmill from Turville are all old favourites.
Wendover Woods, College Lake, Coombe Hill.....Writing this, realising all there is to do, makes me worry that the summer holidays are going to be just too short.....
How Green Is My Valley
Everyone who follows Countryfile will know what a rare and special beast a chalk stream is. And in the Misbourne Valley, we have our very own. This water source probably attracted the first settlers in this area, so we are here and our landscape has developed because of the River Misbourne.
In the past it generated industry; hard to believe, it once powered a corn mill (later a silk mill), providing employment for local residents and a name for the meadow which sweeps down to its edge in Chalfont St Peter. Nowadays the flow is observed and commented upon by many and we read the seasons by it. We walk along our river, pond dip, and bemoan its over-extraction – it was once deep enough for swimming, upstream of Mill Meadow.
Our chalk stream also provides a globally rare habitat to flora and fauna – fed by groundwater retained in the chalk aquifer, this unique environment is easily threatened by over-extraction, pollution and the possible impact of the construction and existence of HS2.
Last Sunday, a working party from the River Misbourne Action Group convened by the river, to help maintain the river bed and its banks. The Group regularly clears the river of detritus (mostly natural, but some human-generated) and monitors levels of aquatic invertebrates, a key method of establishing its health.
I am very much a fringe member, but I have to tell you that it was a great way to spend the morning. Working outside, sun shining, up to the tops of my wellies in water, was a lot of fun, and stresses and strains were washed down river. Straightening up to relieve my stiffening back and seeing that our work had made an obvious difference was the kind of instant gratification I rather enjoy.
As with anything voluntary, more can be done with more people, so please consider visiting the River Misbourne Action Group’s website or their stall at Feast day. We have to take care of our natural world, otherwise as Paul Weller says,
Paradise found down by the still waters
Joined in the race to the rainbow's end
No fears, no worries just a golden country
Woke at sunrise, went home at sunset
Now life is so critical, life is too cynical
We lose our innocence, we lose our very soul...
Tales from the Riverbank
Everyone who follows Countryfile will know what a rare and special beast a chalk stream is. And in the Misbourne Valley, we have our very own. This water source probably attracted the first settlers in this area, so we are here and our landscape has developed because of the River Misbourne.
In the past it generated industry; hard to believe, it once powered a corn mill (later a silk mill), providing employment for local residents and a name for the meadow which sweeps down to its edge in Chalfont St Peter. Nowadays the flow is observed and commented upon by many and we read the seasons by it. We walk along our river, pond dip, and bemoan its over-extraction – it was once deep enough for swimming, upstream of Mill Meadow.
Our chalk stream also provides a globally rare habitat to flora and fauna – fed by groundwater retained in the chalk aquifer, this unique environment is easily threatened by over-extraction, pollution and the possible impact of the construction and existence of HS2.
Last Sunday, a working party from the River Misbourne Action Group convened by the river, to help maintain the river bed and its banks. The Group regularly clears the river of detritus (mostly natural, but some human-generated) and monitors levels of aquatic invertebrates, a key method of establishing its health.
I am very much a fringe member, but I have to tell you that it was a great way to spend the morning. Working outside, sun shining, up to the tops of my wellies in water, was a lot of fun, and stresses and strains were washed down river. Straightening up to relieve my stiffening back and seeing that our work had made an obvious difference was the kind of instant gratification I rather enjoy.
As with anything voluntary, more can be done with more people, so please consider visiting the River Misbourne Action Group’s website or their stall at Feast day. We have to take care of our natural world, otherwise as Paul Weller says,
Paradise found down by the still waters
Joined in the race to the rainbow's end
No fears, no worries just a golden country
Woke at sunrise, went home at sunset
Now life is so critical, life is too cynical
We lose our innocence, we lose our very soul...
Tales from the Riverbank
Incredible Edible Todmorden
Imagine a village in South Bucks aiming for food self-sufficiency. It would take community vision and involvement, local government buy-in, somewhere to plant and lots of trust.
In Todmorden, West Yorkshire, a quiet revolution is underway. ‘Incredible Edible Todmorden’ is on the road to self-sufficiency with raised beds in the town centre, herb and physic gardens on railway platforms, hen-keeping projects, 1000 fruit trees planted, polytunnels, and (rather wonderfully) every school actively involved in growing food.
As their website explains:
‘It doesn’t take big things to create big changes. It takes small things that capture the imagination. A vegetable plot with a revolutionary sign: Help Yourself. Runner beans planted secretly outside a disused health centre. People talked about those beans. They helped themselves to vegetables. Then they started doing things themselves.’ (www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk)
So, it all started with some ‘guerrilla gardening’ - the idea that one plants quietly on disused or neglected land to make it productive or more beautiful. I am not advocating this (or at least, not in public), but am attracted to the idea when I notice unproductive pockets of land that could be transformed by the community.
In Chalfont St Peter, we have made a start producing community food, with two community orchards planted since 2010, and plans (and funding) for a nut grove. The haywardens have planted perennial herbs in the village centre displays; better than bedding plants that are planted then discarded in so many towns and villages across the country.
Of course, there is a distinction between community planting for harvesting by everyone and allotments whose produce is not for general consumption; although allotment holders would be hugely welcomed by an Incredible Edible movement for their knowledge and established community ethos.
So, how about it, everybody? Is this an impossible dream for South Bucks or could we enrich our community and our local environment?
I imagine that in Todmorden, things have moved on greatly from the small acorns of a new movement; in place of planning and a little bit of rule breaking, there must be a new sense of identity, pride and achievement. As they say in Todmorden, ‘We grow for anyone to pick and use. Go ahead, have some!’
Imagine a village in South Bucks aiming for food self-sufficiency. It would take community vision and involvement, local government buy-in, somewhere to plant and lots of trust.
In Todmorden, West Yorkshire, a quiet revolution is underway. ‘Incredible Edible Todmorden’ is on the road to self-sufficiency with raised beds in the town centre, herb and physic gardens on railway platforms, hen-keeping projects, 1000 fruit trees planted, polytunnels, and (rather wonderfully) every school actively involved in growing food.
As their website explains:
‘It doesn’t take big things to create big changes. It takes small things that capture the imagination. A vegetable plot with a revolutionary sign: Help Yourself. Runner beans planted secretly outside a disused health centre. People talked about those beans. They helped themselves to vegetables. Then they started doing things themselves.’ (www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk)
So, it all started with some ‘guerrilla gardening’ - the idea that one plants quietly on disused or neglected land to make it productive or more beautiful. I am not advocating this (or at least, not in public), but am attracted to the idea when I notice unproductive pockets of land that could be transformed by the community.
In Chalfont St Peter, we have made a start producing community food, with two community orchards planted since 2010, and plans (and funding) for a nut grove. The haywardens have planted perennial herbs in the village centre displays; better than bedding plants that are planted then discarded in so many towns and villages across the country.
Of course, there is a distinction between community planting for harvesting by everyone and allotments whose produce is not for general consumption; although allotment holders would be hugely welcomed by an Incredible Edible movement for their knowledge and established community ethos.
So, how about it, everybody? Is this an impossible dream for South Bucks or could we enrich our community and our local environment?
I imagine that in Todmorden, things have moved on greatly from the small acorns of a new movement; in place of planning and a little bit of rule breaking, there must be a new sense of identity, pride and achievement. As they say in Todmorden, ‘We grow for anyone to pick and use. Go ahead, have some!’
Train travel in Europe
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone.
Philip Larkin – ‘The Whitsun Weddings’
Like many of my fellow students, I spent my summer holidays travelling by train, covering vast distances crossing Europe. On some journeys I ‘inter railed’ through Italy, France and Spain. On another, I endured a three day journey from Victoria Station to Istanbul, via German guest workers, intimidating Bulgarian border guards, and a very nice Greek lady who tried in vain to persuade me to smuggle something deeply dubious for her. I was awoken by drunks, a man unforgettable for his appalling foot odor, and random baggage falling from luggage racks. I discovered that West Berlin was (in those far off days) something of an island in a sea of Communist walls and bad –tempered sausage sellers, and that after sitting on my back pack for an entire wakeful night, swaying in time with the undulating corridor outside a packed carriage, there was no better meal to be found than from an early morning, fragrant bakery selling off yesterday’s fare. Dizzy with sleeplessness, a handful of onion bread and a cup of scalding coffee set me up for the day ahead.
Over time, travelling changed; there was a little more money and flights became cheaper, and I got a car. Then the only train I took was to commute into London, and that was strictly eyes down, absorbed in my book, never recognising any one of my fellow commuters who must have got on the same train as me for years on end.
After years of cars and ‘planes, I’ve started travelling by train once more. We try to limit the amount we fly these days, so our European holidays are often started on the Eurostar. And there is something utterly seductive and timeless about the glass temple-like roof at St Pancras, giving the walk along the platform and the groaning and grunting of the train as it waits to depart that uniquely muffled quality that echoes down the years, even centuries. There are the same harried families as there have always been, too much baggage and too few hands, searching for the right carriage, and the anticipation of the journey and holiday to come.
Travelling long-distance by train has a unique feel to it. It is comfortable, inherently leisurely and provides constant ‘in-flight’ amusement. You can settle in, walk about; you have space, fresh air and views. Last summer we went to Italy; by mid-afternoon we were passing Lyon and within 12 reasonably relaxing hours of leaving our front door we were sitting outside a restaurant on the gracious streets of Turin, sipping wine and watching the world pass. En route we had watched the French countryside roll by, rivers and hills giving way to escarpments and snow capped peaks. I will never forget climbing over the Alps in the train, the majesty of the mountains within touching distance through the window as France gave way to Italy.
We have been to Amsterdam, Paris and Lille, packs on backs and self-contained. No lining up at the carousel to reclaim luggage, no schlep from some distant airport to the town centre. The train takes you to the heart of where you want to go and you walk from your carriage to the main street within minutes.
We plan our route with help from a great website, The Man in Seat 61 (http://www.seat61.com/) a massive resource put together by Buckinghamshire man, Mark Smith. Practical and clear, it steers your through the various train networks of the world. So far, we have only used the European section of it – but in future, who knows?
Train travel is not perfect – there have been dogs on the line, broken signals, nail-biting transfers and underground waits. But compared to the sweaty factories that are airports, travelling by train gets my vote every time.
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone.
Philip Larkin – ‘The Whitsun Weddings’
Like many of my fellow students, I spent my summer holidays travelling by train, covering vast distances crossing Europe. On some journeys I ‘inter railed’ through Italy, France and Spain. On another, I endured a three day journey from Victoria Station to Istanbul, via German guest workers, intimidating Bulgarian border guards, and a very nice Greek lady who tried in vain to persuade me to smuggle something deeply dubious for her. I was awoken by drunks, a man unforgettable for his appalling foot odor, and random baggage falling from luggage racks. I discovered that West Berlin was (in those far off days) something of an island in a sea of Communist walls and bad –tempered sausage sellers, and that after sitting on my back pack for an entire wakeful night, swaying in time with the undulating corridor outside a packed carriage, there was no better meal to be found than from an early morning, fragrant bakery selling off yesterday’s fare. Dizzy with sleeplessness, a handful of onion bread and a cup of scalding coffee set me up for the day ahead.
Over time, travelling changed; there was a little more money and flights became cheaper, and I got a car. Then the only train I took was to commute into London, and that was strictly eyes down, absorbed in my book, never recognising any one of my fellow commuters who must have got on the same train as me for years on end.
After years of cars and ‘planes, I’ve started travelling by train once more. We try to limit the amount we fly these days, so our European holidays are often started on the Eurostar. And there is something utterly seductive and timeless about the glass temple-like roof at St Pancras, giving the walk along the platform and the groaning and grunting of the train as it waits to depart that uniquely muffled quality that echoes down the years, even centuries. There are the same harried families as there have always been, too much baggage and too few hands, searching for the right carriage, and the anticipation of the journey and holiday to come.
Travelling long-distance by train has a unique feel to it. It is comfortable, inherently leisurely and provides constant ‘in-flight’ amusement. You can settle in, walk about; you have space, fresh air and views. Last summer we went to Italy; by mid-afternoon we were passing Lyon and within 12 reasonably relaxing hours of leaving our front door we were sitting outside a restaurant on the gracious streets of Turin, sipping wine and watching the world pass. En route we had watched the French countryside roll by, rivers and hills giving way to escarpments and snow capped peaks. I will never forget climbing over the Alps in the train, the majesty of the mountains within touching distance through the window as France gave way to Italy.
We have been to Amsterdam, Paris and Lille, packs on backs and self-contained. No lining up at the carousel to reclaim luggage, no schlep from some distant airport to the town centre. The train takes you to the heart of where you want to go and you walk from your carriage to the main street within minutes.
We plan our route with help from a great website, The Man in Seat 61 (http://www.seat61.com/) a massive resource put together by Buckinghamshire man, Mark Smith. Practical and clear, it steers your through the various train networks of the world. So far, we have only used the European section of it – but in future, who knows?
Train travel is not perfect – there have been dogs on the line, broken signals, nail-biting transfers and underground waits. But compared to the sweaty factories that are airports, travelling by train gets my vote every time.
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