Innholdsfortegnelse for 31-Oct-18 i Country Life

ON November 11, thousands of services will take place around Britain, beside simple village memorials as well as the Cenotaph, to honour the Fallen and in hope that such sacrifice will never be seen again. The 100th anniversary of the Armistice, which ended hostilities in the First World War, will have a special resonance, but the centenary has also raised questions about the continuance of these rites. They began as a response to the carnage of the First World War in the—sadly—vain hope that Europe would not have to suffer such devastation again. That generation is long gone and one might have thought that public appetite for Remembrance would have waned, but it hasn’t been the case. Although attendance may have fallen off in the hippy-minded, flower-strewn 1970s, when memories…

TEN years ago, at the height of the violent conflict in Afghanistan, British clothing designer Emma Willis founded Style for Soldiers to help returning injured servicemen and women (right). She regularly visited Headley Court Military Hospital, Surrey, for eight years to take measurements and, to date, Style for Soldiers has boosted the morale of more than 750 injured service personnel with clothing for new jobs and important occasions. Now, a Style for Soldiers exhibition, supported by Christie’s, Lock & Co, Pol Roger and others, will show photographs of Miss Willis’s hospital visits, with art, poetry and film created by servicemen suffering from PTSD or brain injuries. ‘I have seen a surprising number of veterans instinctively turn to creative pursuits to calm minds and manage the flashbacks, depression and anxiety,’ explains…

BREAKFAST is often described as the most important meal of the day, but our habits in consuming it are changing rapidly. No longer do many people go to work on an egg, as they did a decade ago. Today, they’re far more likely to consume breakfast en route to, or at, their desk. Coffee shops are so ubiquitous along our high streets that, these days, it is almost surprising to find a shop that isn’t one. We’re spending more money on breakfast, but not at the supermarkets, which, having lost much of the revenue from one of the three main meals of the day, have had to reduce the space given over to cereals. Brunch, however, has become a way of life in many parts of Britain and especially London.…

DAISY is a fallow deer; he arrived in a basket one June day in 1909, a forty-eight-hour old baby, a little spotted thing with huge brown eyes and long, ungainly legs. He never seemed to miss his mother and from the first took an interest in everything around him. He soon made his home in the kennel, sleeping at night with three small terriers. After his first year he came and went pretty much as he liked. Twice he has been found solemnly attending a funeral, his ears drooping. His favourite amusement is to go shooting, and he always eats the empty cartridge cases. Often he is very tiresome, but nearly everyone loves him, as he has such friendly ways.…

When two of the tasters you most respect declare that South Africa is currently the world’s most exciting wine country, you sit up and take notice. Of course, the Cape is hardly an arriviste on the scene—wine has been made there since the late 17th century. From the 1980s onwards, I was aware of really exciting wines being made in South Africa; my enterprising wine-merchant father listed estates that included Hamilton Russell in Hermanus and Chamonix (producer of fine Chardonnay and the excellent Bordeaux-blend Troika) from Franschhoek. Why you should be drinking them Arguably, South Africa has really come of age in the past decade or so. Cooler areas, such as Elgin and Cederberg, have come to the fore and parcels of old-vine Chenin and other varieties have been…

Remembering a hero WILLIAM NEWSOM’S Letter of the week (October 17) struck a chord with me as the town of Lurgan in Co Armagh, close to my home, wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a ‘thankful village’. In 1914, the population was about 12,500. By the time the First World War ended, 395 men had laid down their lives. When the call to arms came—and there was no conscription in Ireland —hundreds of men from Lurgan signed up. One was William McFadzean. On July 1, 1916, at 7.30am, the whistles blew and men from every street in Lurgan climbed out of their trenches and walked towards the German lines. McFadzean didn’t make it out of the trenches as, before the men went over the top, a box of grenades…

Richard Pousette-Dart: Beginnings is at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, until January 6, 2019 (01223 748100; www.kettlesyard.co.uk)Born in Minnesota, Richard Pousette-Dart (1916–92) worked in New York in the 1940s, playing a key role in the genesis of Abstract Expressionism. Part of the legendary generation that defined a new era of Modern art in the postwar years—his contemporaries included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning—Pousette-Dart created bold, layered paintings with encrusted surfaces, as well as experimenting with drawing (right: Gothic Garden, ink and watercolour, about 1948–52), photography and sculpture. This first solo exhibition of his work in the UK shows the influence of Kettle’s Yard creator Jim Ede, with whom he corresponded and shared a belief in art’s transcendental power. Frank Avray Wilson: Abstract Expressionist Paintings 1953–1963 is at Whitford Fine…

IN the late summer of 1914, Ethel Bilborough, an amateur artist married to an insurance manager, bought a small Union Flag. Just as the rest of the country did, she waved it enthusiastically as the British Expeditionary Force marched off to war. When not being waved, it was put in her window. However, as the months dragged on, such exhibitions seemed inappropriate. It was hung on her chimneypiece, only to be taken down when there was something worth cheering about. That moment came on November 11, 1918. ‘Today has been a truly wonderful day,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘and I’m glad I was alive to see it!’ Ethel had spent the morning attempting to write a letter, which was difficult in the atmosphere of febrile expectation. Then ‘suddenly the…

‘There have been so many highlights—performing the Musical Drive in front of The Queen at Windsor has to be one of the best,’ says L/Bdr Toni Pilley, 22. ‘The adrenaline rush as you wait to go into the arena is like nothing else. ‘I joined the Troop to have a career with horses. Growing up in Sheffield, I had my own pony, doing local shows, a bit of showjumping and cross-country, but I had to learn how to do things the military way. The kit is different and you have to be able to vault on and ride one-handed, carrying a sword. ‘I’m a wheel driver for my sub-section and I’m in charge of our stables. I like to think we’ve got the best sub-section; we’re constantly skipping out [the…

Only in 1935 did the British public learn that First World War propaganda had been officially organised by the government. Twenty-five leading authors, summoned in August 1914 by the new Propaganda Bureau to mount a campaign to counter German accounts, were sworn to secrecy concerning Whitehall’s role in reports designed to influence the media and the public. An official 1915 pamphlet on ‘alleged German outrages’ against Belgian civilians, published in 30 languages, set the tone for a justified war against a brutal foe. More than 1,160 pamphlets would be written by literary figures. A monthly magazine edited by John Buchan ran to 24 issues and he was promoted to Lt-Col, in charge of a new Department of Information at £1,000 a year. A reorganisation in 1918 drew in newspaper magnates…

TODAY, ‘raised on fairytales’ is a common slur. Little girls who have grown up on a diet of Disney are deemed daft for patiently waiting for their prince to come and rescue them from a life of drudgery—even if this is more likely to constitute taking the Tube and answering emails than sweeping cinders. Young boys are fools to believe that they can take on the ogre and emerge victorious. We might wonder what the Brothers Grimm would think of this evolution of their oeuvre, which was originally, quite frankly, pretty grim. Jacob and Wilhelm were German scholars who compiled folk songs and literature, initially staying true to the tales they collected. ‘Stealing is okay as long as it’s from a child-gobbling witch’ However, the gradual sanitisation of their Kinder-…

I’m not sure our Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Tattie, is a luxury, and she’s not really mine as I gave her to my husband for our wedding present, but I’m pretty obsessed with her. If ‘a luxury’ means expensive, then she’s certainly that! Up to now, my dogs have been rescue ones, ours for a donation to the charity, but John had once had a Cavalier he swore was the perfect dog: it would walk to heel across Piccadilly without a lead, it went everywhere with him and sat under his seat. Well, all I can say is Tattie is spoilt rotten, badly behaved and has never heard the word ‘no’. When I protest, John says: ‘She’s a princess. Princess Tatiana.’ I remind him she’s called Tattie to go…

TWO recently founded art fairs will have their second and third outings in Paris in the next fortnight: Fine Arts Paris (FAP), with 43 French and foreign galleries at the Carrousel du Louvre from November 7 to 11, and Also Known As Africa: Art & Design Fair (AKAA), with 44 galleries from 15 countries at the Carreau du Temple from November 9 to 11. I missed both last year, but at least I should get to FAP this time and much look forward to it. It is organised by the same team as the Salon du Dessin, one of my favourite Parisian events. I hope that four of the oldest offerings will, in fact, reach Paris, as Les Enluminures, the specialist in medieval manuscripts and rings, which operates in…

Farmers The Government has committed a further £30 million towards the popular Countryside Productivity Small Grants scheme, which helps farmers buy equipment A world of pure imagination After six months of flood-damage renovation, the Roald Dahl Museum, Buckinghamshire, where the author lived for 36 years, has reopened William Morris’s legacy Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, the designer’s country house, has received a £4.3 million HLF grant. The collection there includes works by Morris, Burne-Jones, Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown…

THE Scottish government and Food Standards Scotland have reassured the public that there’s no threat to human health after a case of BSE, better known as mad-cow disease, was detected on a farm in Aberdeenshire earlier this month. It’s the first time in 10 years that the disease has been confirmed in Scotland, although another case was diagnosed in Wales in 2015. Speaking to the Scottish Parliament, Scotland’s Minister for Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment, Mairi Gougeon, said that ‘the animal that was positively diagnosed for BSE was not destined for the food chain’. She also explained that a movement ban has been placed on the farm as the Animal and Plant Health Agency investigates the source of the disease, possibly a freak genetic mutation. Scotland’s Chief Veterinary Officer,…

BREXIT is at the top of the countryside agenda this week, after the House of Lords published a report on Britain’s future biosecurity and wrote a letter to Defra Secretary Michael Gove raising ‘serious concerns’ about the consequences of not reaching an agreement with the EU. Diseases Currently, says the committee’s chair Lord Teverson, ‘we are integrated into the EU system, which gives advance warning of diseases sweeping across the Continent’. Without a deal, this process would be jeopardised. The Lords is concerned that Defra could struggle to put replacement systems in place ahead of March 29 Waste In a no-deal Brexit, licences issued in the UK to waste-shipping companies would no longer be valid in EU countries. After March 29, exporters would have to seek re-approval to move any…

WINCHESTER has many attractions—a Trollopian cathedral close, winding paths through water meadows well trodden by Keats and the atmospheric Wykeham Arms—but it’s the Gobi Desert of independent retailing. The city centre has no butcher, fishmonger or grocer—only the sort of shops you’d expect to find in any well-heeled British city. Stray a little further into Hampshire’s Test and Itchen valleys and you’ll find small towns in which Miss Marple might feel at home, such as Stock-bridge and Alresford. The latter are places where the life has yet to be sucked out of the high street by retail parks and, as a result, they still have small specialist food shops in spades. A leisurely Saturday morning in either is a reminder that there’s nothing antediluvian or sniffy about not wanting to…

A hairy moment Q Having missed an appointment or two with the barber, my locks are now grazing my collar and I rather like the effect. I’m tempted to keep going awhile and even try a ‘man bun’. What are your thoughts on longer hair on men? If it makes any difference to your decision, it’s thick and lustrous. B. W., Ayrshire A Go for it. I’m a Re-maner. Not because the short-back and sides was a mere dreary blip in male trichological evolution, nor because masculine couture desperately needs any imagination and variety that it can marshal. Not even because I believe—to put things baldly—that those fortunate enough to have it should flaunt it. It’s because you live in Ayrshire. Channel your fortunate county’s wild and virtually dreadlocked…

The horses are stabled in six subsections or batteries, according to their colour, from light bay (A Battery) through to the dark-brown/black horses of F Battery, which also pull the gun carriage for state funerals New horses’ manes are hogged (clipped) to show they’ve completed their training Officers’ chargers are named after characters from the ‘Jorrocks’ hunting stories by R. S. Surtees. Current mounts include Lucy Glitters, Lord Firebrand and Duke of Dazzleton Women were admitted to the Troop in 1996, and now make up 50% of the regiment, with some all-female gun teams The Troop’s 10 farriers ( above ) shoe the horses’ hind feet every two to three weeks and the front feet every four to five weeks ‘Bliffing’ boots to the requisite mirror shine, with beeswax and…

WHEN the Second Boer War broke out in 1899, wealthy socialite Agnes Keyser asked her friend, the then Prince of Wales, what she could do to help. ‘Why not convert your house into a hospital for wounded officers when they are returned to this country?’ he replied. Her lack of nursing experience swiftly deemed insignificant, Agnes and her sister, Fanny, set to work converting their house in Grosvenor Crescent, London SW1. Within just weeks of the future King’s suggestion, Sister Agnes Hospital opened its doors to officer casualties from South Africa. Greeting every patient herself as they arrived and always making a point of being there to hold their hand when they went under gas for an operation, Sister Agnes was renowned for her unwavering devotion to her patients—‘my boys’,…

Quince, plum and ginger crumble ( below ) Peel and core two quinces and cut them into large slices. Simmer in water with a sprinkling of caster sugar for about 20 minutes. Remove, reserving the syrup, and arrange the fruit in a medium-sized oven dish with eight roughly chopped plums. Add five pieces of preserved ginger and drizzle some of the syrup over them. Add a few tablespoons of caster sugar to the fruit and then cover with a crumble topping made by rubbing these ingredients together with your fingertips: 60g butter, 60g Demerara sugar, 80g plain flour and 40g porridge oats. Place in a moderately hot oven for 45 minutes or until the top is a gentle, golden brown. Serve with… well, you know how…

‘Our staff are regular people: they understand what good service looks like, but have no airs and graces, so everyone is treated exactly the same’Managing director Nick Keyte talks to Hetty Lintell Savile Row can be a daunting place for a chap on the hunt for a beautifully made suit, but Gieves & Hawkes is different, refreshingly so. The tailor has been based at No 1 Savile Row since 1913 and the door is always open —metaphorically, of course. You can merely pop your head in to admire the beautiful interior architecture (the building was bought from the Royal Geographic Society and the main room is still called the Map Room), if not the clothing and accessories, but we challenge you not to be tempted by at least one…

The season for eating asparagus finished in early June, when your admirable iron discipline once more let the fern grow untouched for another year. All summer it’s been rising, providing an excellent place for cats to sleep and nab errant rodents. Now, it’s turned a noble tint of yellow, which tells us it’s finished its cycle of growth and is ready to be cut down. Treat it as you would any other herbaceous perennial and cut it to the ground with secateurs, then remove the lot to the compost heap. Now, crawl about and hand-weed thoroughly and carefully among the clumps.…

OUR friend Rose came to stay, bringing with her a bag of wools and needles and a stiff sheet of embroidery canvas on which she had traced the improbable outline of a slipper, like a pair of wings. Within the outline, Rose had embroidered shells and wraiths of seaweed, evoking, at the point of a needle and in miniature, happy summers spent on Hebridean beaches. When she’s embroidered two of them, she’ll hand over the canvas to a shoemaker to cut, sew and fit to soles, creating a pair of exquisite embroidered slippers for her youngest daughter to wear, like a Renaissance princess or Cinderella without the vulgarity of crystal. All my life, I’ve been aware of women who stitch. My mother, for example, smocking a linen dress for my…

IF you’d like to drink something special this Christmas, look to Christie’s New York. Three cases of Madeira from 1796 that were discovered in 2015 behind a Prohibition-era false wall during restoration of the wine cellar at Liberty Hall Museum, New Jersey, where they have remained hidden for a century—together with some 40 1820s demijohns found underneath straw in the attic—will go under the hammer on December 7. Estimates start at $8,000 (£6,202, www.christies.com). ‘Our old door had always protected our home against witches,’ explains COUNTRY LIFE reader Michael Cole of Woodbridge, Suffolk, ‘but I didn’t know it until, on a whim, I decided to clean off the many layers of black paint that covered it. As I did so, strange symbols began to appear.’ This ancient barn door…

If there is no deal, pets will still be able to travel with their owners to Europe, but may need additional documentation. This will depend on how quickly the UK is listed as third country and whether it’s listed as Part 1 (allowing pets to travel under the same rules as the current EU Pet Travel Scheme) or Part 2 (requiring other certificates). If you intend to travel on or immediately after March 29, now is the time to contact an Official Veterinarian.…

Quiz of the week 1) How many strings does a mandolin commonly have? 2) An eft is a juvenile what? 3) What were J. R. R. Tolkien’s first names? 4) What is the name of the model village near Birmingham founded by the Cadbury family? 5) Which item of pub paraphernalia would a tegestologist collect? Time to buy Five things you (probably) didn’t know about… Lord Nelson • Nelson was one of very few men outside the Royal Family to have been granted a heraldic state funeral. An enormous national event, the procession included some 10,000 regular soldiers. • HMS Victory, now on display at the National Maritime Museum, was almost scrapped in 1831 and was largely left to rot until the 1920s. • The diamond headpiece, known as…

Fair November 2–4 Made by Hand ( right and below ), City Hall, Cardiff. A selection of 135 award-winning makers selling jewellery, pottery, furniture, textiles, glass and more directly to the public. There will also be workshops on topics including stained glass and mosaic-making. Adult daily ticket £7 (www.madebyhand-wales.co.uk) November 3 The Chiddingfold Quintessentially English Winter Sale, Chiddingfold Village Hall, Surrey. Thirty stalls selling vintage and artisan items for you and your home plus delicious refreshments. 10.30am–3pm, entrance £1 with proceeds going to St Mary’s Church November 5–7 WellChild Christmas Fair at Daylesford, Kingham, Oxfordshire. The annual fair in support of WellChild will have 200 stalls—some 80 of which are new—in three marquees, selling homeware, textiles, jewellery, millinery, leather, cashmere, children’s clothes and toys. Advance tickets from £6…

THE centenary of the 1918 Armistice comes at a curious time for European relations. The Brexit referendum took place in June 2016, 100 years on from the Battle of the Somme. Britain, France and Germany were tearing each other to pieces. So much, then, for memories of livid state aggression influencing the outcome! Athena takes no public stance, but she is intrigued by the way hatred gives way to harmony. How nations treat the enemy’s war dead is part of this healing process. Visit the Silent Cities of the Western Front and the difference in national war cemeteries is starkly felt. Britain’s Commonwealth War Graves Commission continues its fine work with elegant Portland stone memorials and tombstones in garden settings. Germany’s war dead lie beneath more reticent crosses or grave-markers:…

‘I read Michael Levey’s wonderful book Painting in Eighteenth-Century Venice when it was published in 1980 and was entranced by his chapter on Tiepolo, a new name to me. An Allegory with Venus and Time appeared on the jacket, so I went to see it at the National Gallery. Father Time gently receives a newborn baby from Venus. The child, who stands for all of us, gazes out with an unforgettable mixture of curiosity and apprehension. With the lightest of touches, Tiepolo offers a vision of life that incorporates transience and mortality within love and beauty. I find this painting as moving as anything by Titian or Rembrandt ’ John McEwen comments on An Allegory with Venus and Time THIS picture was ‘discovered’ by the art historian, dealer and critic…

ON September 2, 1914, many of the country’s leading authors reported to Wellington House, headquarters of the Government’s new Propaganda Bureau. Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, J. M. Barrie, G. K. Chesterton, G. M. Trevelyan, Arnold Bennett and H. G. Wells were among the writers called in to discuss public support for the First World War. A notable absentee was Rudyard Kipling, advocate of nationhood and chronicler of empire, but he had already launched attacks on Germany, having long foreseen the conflict. In that same month, he published in The Times a poem entitled For All We Have and Are, which contained the line ‘The Hun is at the gate’. The pejorative reference would become popular throughout the war. Both Kipling and Conan Doyle had been deeply involved in a…

1899 The hospital is founded by sisters Agnes and Fanny Keyser, who open their home to wounded officers returning from the Second Boer War 1904 It becomes King Edward VII’s Hospital for Officers. Today, the charity’s patron is The Queen and the president is The Duke of Kent 1914 Sister Agnes issues the following announcement: ‘I have enlarged this hospital and am quite ready for any number of sick and wounded officers. There is nothing to pay and all officers are eligible’ 1963 The Queen visits Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at the hospital to receive his resignation 2002 After suffering a stroke, Princess Margaret dies peacefully in her sleep at the hospital, surrounded by her children…

FLORENCE is heavenly all year round and the place to stay is the newly renovated Lungarno, on the bank of the River Arno, with views onto the Ponte Vecchio. Freshly decked out like the smartest of yachts—it’s all polished wood, blue and white fabrics and chic photography—it made me plan an entire interior rehaul when I got home. The beds are a highlight and if the delicious breakfast hadn’t been calling my name, I could quite easily have stayed put, gazing out at the water from the window. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the House of Ferragamo, which owns the Lungarno Collection of hotels in Florence (hop over the river in five minutes for a cocktail at my favourite spot, La Terrazza Continentale on the roof terrace of…

OLIVER SPENCER—fiftyish and artfully scruffy—walks his bicycle right into the new Favourbook shop in Pall Mall, London SW1, but nobody stops him. They wouldn’t. He’s a founder of the famously flamboyant brand—and, besides, there’s plenty of room. This isn’t of those crusty St James’s shops, all dark panelling and handwritten ledgers. It has an expansive feel, in keeping with the gentlemen’s clubs over the road. Sumptuous jackets, dazzling waistcoats and colourful bowties are displayed with a kind of understated profusion: a cross, says Oli, between the V&A and an opulent boîte de nuitsuch as Loulou’s. Favourbrook, long a fixture on Jermyn Street, hasn’t entirely abandoned old haunts: there is still a shop in the Piccadilly Arcade. However, Pall Mall, with its handsome Portland stone and next to the fishing mecca…

Susannah has been selling exceptional jewels from her shop in Burlington Arcade for more than 20 years. An expert in gemmology, diamond grading and also jewellery design, she is an authority in the field of fine jewellery and her shop is well known for its beautiful treasures and unparalleled customer service. Joanna is an expert in vintage jewellery with more than 30 years of experience. She trained as a goldsmith and then graded diamonds, before heading up the jewellery department of Sotheby’s. She now runs her jewellery school, gives masterclasses and lectures, appears on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow and has published three books.…

Part of the incentive for Rofford Manor’s burgeoning kitchen garden is to supply Mr Mogford’s two renowned hotels in Oxford, but that’s only one factor which makes it such a brilliant example of how to combine productivity with decoration. The secret is constant management, as Mr Huson says: ‘You can never leave a kitchen garden alone—you’re always planning ahead.’ However, there’s also clever selection of fruit and vegetable varieties that are best suited to the site, such as the step-over pear and apple varieties Beth and Jester, which are ideal for limited space. There’s also a striking arrangement of foliage, especially at this time of year, with rows of cavalo nero and kale Dwarf Green Curled alongside Swiss chard Fantasy and Fordhook Giant, alternating with squash Avalon and Potimarron, courgette…