Everywhere should be more like Essex
Apart from the Wye Valley, where I grew up, there are only two places in Britain I’d consider living: Kent and Essex. Since Kent grabbed the ‘Garden of England’ moniker, it’s generally considered the...
View ArticleDogs of war
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_9_Oct_2014_v4.mp3 It happened so quickly, as these things always do. My wife Julia and I were pootling about on Wells beach with our fluffy...
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Letters
Nothing to fear Sir: So long as we are not breaking any law, we have nothing to fear from the police being able to access our mobiles (‘Licence to snoop’, 11 October). They, however, would be...
View ArticleWhy counties still count
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_Oct_2014_v4.mp3 Just over 35 years ago, in August 1979, Christopher Booker wrote a cri de coeur in The Spectator calling for the return of...
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Mind games Sir: I hope that people are not unduly put off by Melanie McDonagh’s misrepresentation of mindfulness as a cop-out for navel-gazers who lack the moral fibre to engage in ‘proper’ religion...
View ArticleCider-making
The fabulous October weather is now just a memory but it made for a golden, old-fashioned apple day down in Somerset. The plan was to pick and convert a mound of sugar-rich Redstreaks — about 400 kilos...
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The fairy census
If like me you get all your news from the Cornish Guardian, you may have spotted an article announcing that the Fairy Investigation Society is conducting a survey. They’re seeking information from...
View ArticleDiary
An embarrassing confession: in the late 1960s, I was a Trotskyite. But that period of political adolescence has its uses. It made me aware of the methods employed by extremist parties such as the Scots...
View ArticleHunting
This time three years ago, I hadn’t jumped a single thing for almost ten years. This season, I am happily jumping hedges that my horse and I can’t even see over the top of. Crazy? Most likely. But when...
View ArticleLow life
My grandson and I had a lovely hour-long swim at the leisure centre. We had the learner pool to ourselves for the first half an hour, during which we threw and dived for our little weighted plastic...
View ArticleIt takes a village (or six)
Some of the longest job descriptions belong to rural Church of England clergy. ‘So what do you do?’ ‘I’m the Rector of Aldwincle, Clopton, Pilton, Stoke Doyle, Thorpe Achurch, Titchmarsh and Wadenhoe.’...
View ArticleA divided inheritance
When we consider poets who perished before their day, thoughts turn to the Romantics or the war victims: Burns, Keats, Shelley: Owen, Keith Douglas. (Had both lived, Douglas would have ended up a...
View ArticleThe war on rural England
Listen http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-snp-threat-to-westminster/media.mp3 There is no such thing as the English countryside. There is my countryside, your countryside and everyone else’s. Most...
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The power of collective grievance
When last Sunday Pope Francis took the brave step of acknowledging the Armenian tragedy as the ‘first genocide of the 20th century’, he knew he was entering a minefield. On 24 April Armenians will...
View ArticleLiving history
It has been a while since the BBC really pushed the boat out on the epic history documentary front. Perhaps to make amends it is treating us to possibly the most historian-studded,...
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This is England
At the Turner Prize dinner of 2003, as the winner, Grayson Perry, took a photo call with his family wearing a girlish dress and huge bow in his hair, a German contemporary artist who was sitting at the...
View ArticleThe farm that went wild
It was the nightingale I liked best. Or maybe the auroch. The nightingale sang strong and marvellously sweet when all the other singers had given up, his voice filling the night. Each nightingale has a...
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Return to Dreamland
Arrive at Margate on the new high-speed train linking the international glitter of St Pancras to this distant stretch of the South Coast, and before you’ve even glimpsed the sea you’ll see Dreamland,...
View ArticleLetters
Growing congregations Sir: I would like to take issue with Damian Thompson (‘Crisis of faith’, 13 June) and his assertions that England’s churches are in deep trouble. Last Saturday 250 Christians...
View ArticlePicnics
Strange, isn’t it, that despite having such famously terrible weather, we Brits are so fond of a picnic. It’s something to do with making the most of what sunshine we get — but if you ever plan to eat...
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