HS2 – can local wildlife benefit from a Slow Speed corridor?

Bird watching’s for middle-aged biddies with moustaches. Or so I always thought. Or possibly I am moving into that very category. Whatever, that’s how I spent a sunny Sunday in early October; walking around College Lake, binocs at a jaunty angle, enjoying the bright, autumnal light, picking succulent blackberries, and interrogating (from a distance) the birds on the lake to see what was out there.

BBOWT, our local wildlife conservation charity, runs College Lake; just outside Tring, just inside Buckinghamshire, BBOWT has developed it into one of the foremost locations in Bucks for bird watching. It’s a fantastic facility for humans and nature.

BBOWT runs nature reserves across Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire, and it’s not always easy: dependent on grants and public generosity, long-term survival is never assured. Now, of course, there is a new threat to our wildlife habitats in this area: HS2.

BBOWT is extremely exercised, for good reason, about this proposed development. Whilst it won’t directly affect College Lake, its impact on some other BBOWT reserves, and habitats outside the reserves, will be immeasurable, and permanent.

The stated intent of HS2 is that there should be ‘no net loss to biodiversity’, but many people fear that should it go ahead, it will massively impact local wildlife, and there is concern that the existing environmental analyses significantly underplay this issue. Local losses would include Bechstein’s bats and certain rare butterflies; wildflower meadows, wetlands and ancient woodlands would be damaged and even lost forever.

Whilst BBOWT opposes HS2, it also proposes a way that, should it be built, might mitigate this immense damage.

Its alternative vision of HS2 argues (based on thorough, academic research) that around 15,000 hectares of interlinked wild places could be established along the length of the route, for no net expense, where people could walk, cycle and enjoy nature, ultimately providing a ‘net gain’ for wildlife.

Their report ‘HS2: A vision for large-scale nature restoration along the Proposed Route’ makes the environmental, social and economic case for the Government properly to address the impact of HS2 on wildlife and ecosystems.

Personally, I find it hard to envisage how the impact of HS2 on our wildlife might be reduced to anything like an acceptable level, but at least BBOWT is trying. So you don’t have to set off in pursuit of the hirsute to support BBOWT, you could just become a member. Beards particularly welcome.

http://www.bbowt.org.uk/

11+ appeals under the new sytem (post 2013)

To those whose children have just done the 11+, well survived. It feels great when it’s over yet still too early to think about the outcome.

However, with apologies, this article is about appealing, which you may have to tangle with if you are faced with a near miss and feel that your child should go to grammar school.

Not only has the 11+ exam changed recently, the appeal system has too. I have been involved in appeals under both systems, and had to work hard to get a grip on the new one. This article is an attempt to explain it, as I understand it. If you appeal, please gather your own research and information since this article merely flags up some points to think about.

Pre-2012, appeals were made by submitting written evidence of academic ability and any extenuating circumstances, then presenting before an appeals panel.

This has been replaced by a two-tier system. The first application is to a ‘selection review’; a paper-only submission to a panel of three head teachers. If you are unsuccessful at this stage, you may then go on to the second tier, namely a full appeal before a panel.

Schools tend to recommend going through the selection review. However, be aware that:

1. The selection review tier is optional, so you can bypass it and go just for a full appeal. One disadvantage (this past year) was that full appeals were heard very late in the academic year and after allocation of school places.

2. If you are unsuccessful at selection review, and proceed to a full appeal, you have an additional hurdle: the Admissions Authority will assert that your child’s review was fair, consistent and objective, so your appeal should not be heard. To get your hearing, you must first successfully argue that the selection review was not carried out in a fair, consistent and objective manner. Tricky, and you won’t face this if you bypass the selection review.

I was curious to discover what proportion of people understand the new appeal system so I carried out a small survey amongst friends dealing with the 11+ in 2013. Out of everyone who answered my enquiry, just one family realised that the selection review was optional and that there is also an appeal; they had gleaned that from 11+ forums, not from the BCC website; have a look at http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/

Cyclamen: my autumn roses

I love the Spring: that particular vivid green show of new leaf, the promise of a twig, bare but for some shyly swelling copper buds bursting suddenly into a profusion of blossom, and most of all, the sudden proliferation of yellow narcissi after the dull grey or even white of a long, dark winter.

So when it’s autumn, what to do? Trees carry elderly, tired-looking foliage which will slowly give up and fall off, the veg has vegged, the few flowers that remain in my garden look leggy, seedy (in both senses) and frankly like it’s time to put on their slippers and have some hot cocoa. Everything seems to be saying – enough now – we’ve done our bit for the year - except for a small bright bunch of wild cyclamen shouting ‘We’re here! Look at us!’ under a bush in my front garden.

We’re not talking about any of the voluptuous pink-knickered cultivated varieties, which adorn your windowsill so brightly until they get bored and slump into a vulgar heap, but the small, dainty, wild types which grow in woodland, between mountain rocks and along gritty roadsides throughout the Mediterranean, where summers are arid and winters more temperate. Many cyclamen bloom, as a result of that climate, in the Autumn and are hardy enough to cope with our winters.

Essentially a woodland plant, as the trees above them shed their leaves and early autumn rains reach the earth below, the plants spring into life, flowers first, pink and white heads nodding on fragile stems. Then as they fade, the delicately patterned, highly decorative leaves give verdancy to the increasingly barren soil. In fact, it is the foliage which give a common autumnal variety its name - Cyclamen hederifolium – ‘ivy leaved’.

For years I have planted Spring bulbs everywhere I can so that they will give me the first hint of the wakening up of the soil and warmth in the air, announcing the coming of longer days and more sunshine, and I have completely overlooked softening the edges of the colder, shorter days by planting something which will cheerfully and robustly bloom in September.

From now on, though, I will build up my beds of wild cyclamen and will look forward to them as much as I do to daffodils.

To everything there is a season.

"Should Scotland be an independent country?”

This is the question for Scotland on 18 September 2014.

So if you holiday in Scotland next year, will you cross an international border? Is the UK about to lose North Sea oil and gas? Will Scotland be ejected from the EU? What will happen to our nuclear capability? Are we so politically disparate now that Scotland is right to go? Do we care?

Whilst in Scotland and Westminster, such questions are being endlessly discussed, I have heard little debate locally. Is this because of the company I keep, because we don’t see it as relevant to us, or is our old friend, disempowerment - for nobody in England, including Scottish people living outside their homeland, may vote – stifling debate?

Anyone living in Scotland who is 16 or older will be entitled to vote on 18 September. Curiously enough, in addition to British citizens, this will include citizens of all 27 EU countries and 52 other Commonwealth countries.

So returning to the question, do we care? – I see little evidence demonstrating that we do. It is not a subject, as far as I am aware, for playground or dinner party debate, yet it will be an enormous historical, geographical and political change should Scotland leave the UK.

I have huge sympathy for everyone outside the South East wishing to reject an endlessly London-centric UK, with no obvious Westminster will to change and HS2 only the latest manifestation of this trend. Scotland leaving the Union might be the shakeup needed to change the way things are done once and for all.

Nonetheless, I would have liked the rest of the union to have demonstrated a deep desire for Scotland, by having the Scottish flag fluttering from every shop in every village, debates in schools, letters to every newspaper editor, Twitter constantly trending, news stories generated across the country sending the message that we all want Scotland to stay.

Why do I care so much? Well, history and geography mean a great deal, the political wranglings less. But when I really consider it, a southerner through and through, without a Scottish cell in my body, it is because Scotland, with its magical, wild beauty, windswept mountains, huge skies and empty spaces, is part of my home, its people, my co-citizens, and we will all be the poorer should the blue fade from the Union Jack.

Fair trade and school uniform (Bucks Advertiser August 2014)

I’ve been thinking about fair trade and school uniforms. This is the time of year when some of us are starting to kit our kids out for the academic year ahead, and if we made the scuffed shoes and grey-cuffed shirts that didn’t quite reach the wrist any more last till the end of the summer term, now we are preparing to put our kids’ best (smart) foot forward.

So let’s shop around for bargains. Can we get three for two at the local supermarket? Which store is winning this race to the bargain basement? It’s a lucrative corner of the market – you can tell from the amount of advertising.

This is what worries me; we have all seen the conditions faced by textile workers in developing countries – long hours, poor wages, industrial injuries, death-trap buildings. Charities such as Oxfam highlight the plight of children foregoing education to go out to work. So are we, when we buy cheap clothes for our kids to wear to school, depriving children far away, beyond our ken, of their chance to learn, therefore hard-wiring poverty into their lives? Are low costs in our shops the result of child labour?

Never raise a problem without suggesting a solution, so here goes. First, before you buy, ask what the store’s policy is on child labour. (Although once when I did this, I got the reply, “28 days, Madam”). You can also look on stores’ websites for their ethical and labour policies and base your choices on that; it feels good, even if it costs a little more. See if your child’s school runs a second hand uniform shop, and if not, set one up with profits going to the PTA. Ask if a store stocks fair trade school shirts – if enough of us do this, then maybe next year, it will. Second hand stuff – always good, too. Consider donating to charities such as Labour behind the Label. (Have a look at their excellent website if you want to know more).

In a world in which the UN International Labour Organisation estimates that 168 million children worldwide – one in ten – are involved in child labour, it is easy to feel powerless and disengaged, but we mustn’t. There is always something we can do; not least we can use the power in our purses and decide that we will no longer be part of the problem.

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

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.....