Innholdsfortegnelse for 10-Jun-2020 i Country Life

TO the roar of gunfire in the late afternoon of June 7, 1520, the Feast of Corpus Christi, Henry VIII rode through the gates of Guînes in the Pas de Calais with a great retinue of 3,500 men on foot and horseback. He was travelling to meet Francis I, King of France, who set out from nearby Ardres to arrive with a similarly brave—some said braver—show at exactly the same moment. The two monarchs met midway on what was then English soil, riding forward to embrace each other on horseback. Their meeting was the opening episode in an exactingly choreographed 18-day encounter amid tents and temporary buildings familiarly known as the Field of Cloth of Gold. The splendours, celebrity and drama of this event exactly 500 years ago captivated contemporaries;…

ONE of the pleasures since the mild reductions to the state of lockdown has been a slight relaxation of the authority that one’s own children have imposed on so many of us parents. They should all be commended for the seriousness with which they have taken the pandemic—especially as they are at much less risk than us of becoming seriously ill—but many friends have been murmuring that it was worse than being at school. Having to explain to your teenage son or daughter why you went to Waitrose to buy some gin is at least as terrifying as any trip to the headmaster’s office. When it comes to birthdays, there seem to be four stages of life: when you are a child, to be aged seven seems so much better…

Quality over quantity Q My wife and I both recently retired. I know some struggle with being under each other’s feet, but I have found quite the opposite. I was looking forward to quality time together, but she seems to be around less than ever. How might I suggest she cuts back on her activities? B. I., Oxfordshire A Ha! Be careful what you wish for—this one arrived before Covid-19 made cellmates of us all. Back then, I might have said to bide your time. Marriage demands a flow of adjustments, a daily managing of expectations. Medical advances mean you have another 30-odd years of this. She wants to cram in as much as she can before incapacity locks you down. I would have sided with your wife. By…

Ripe, dry and spicy Château Dereszla, Dry Tokaji, Tokaj, Hungary 2018. £7.99, Lidl, alc 12.5% Famed for its sweet wines, Tokaj is gaining a reputation for its dry Furmints. These wines have moderate alcohol, subtle flavours and are food-friendly. In this one, you'll find a hint of windfall apples on the nose and it's ripe, dry and spicy to taste. Raspberry and strawberry Kayra, Beyaz Kalecik Karası Blanc de Noir, Denizli, Aegean Coast, Turkey 2018. £12–£15, All About Wine, Corking Wines, GP Brands, Great Wines Direct, Novel Wines, Strictly Wine, alc 11.5% From indigenous Kalecik Karasi grapes, this has stewed, ripe raspberry dusted with pepper and herbs. There is decent acidity on the palate with juicy lime, apple and strawberry fruits. Ocean breezes Bodegas Hidalgo, La Gitana En…

FROM his West Yorkshire eyrie, you would imagine Simon Armitage carefully guarding his status as a detached poetic observer, seldom lacking warmth in his verse, but an outsider all the same. However, he rejects suggestions that he baulked at accepting a position so smacking of establishment approval as the Poet Laureateship, which dates back to 1668, when Charles II appointed John Dryden. ‘There’s a contradiction that comes with any official role in poetry,’ explains the 21st holder of this honorary title, ‘because although I may have an image of myself operating on the margins looking in, I can’t pretend I’m not already established in lots of ways. ‘I publish with Faber, a well-established poetry press, I’ve had big roles at several universities and I do lots of media broadcasting. I’ve…

I SAW a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge cart-horse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them.’ When George Orwell wrote this passage in his preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm in 1947, explaining the genesis of his allegorical novella, the book had already been read in Britain and beyond for almost two years, which makes 2020 the 75th anniversary of its launch. Animal Farm would become Orwell’s first commercial success and the one that would begin to cement his reputation as a literary giant. He would follow it with his dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel he wrote when isolated from…

Serves 4 Ingredients 4 eggs2 smoked-haddock fillets2 wild-salmon filletsHalf a pint of milk3 bay leaves4 bacon rashers, chopped5 shallots, chopped2 shoots lemongrass, chopped200g oats1tbspn ground coriander1tbspn turmeric1 chilli, choppedPinch of Cheshire saffron400ml fish stock1 lemon1 lime150ml creamHandful of parsley, chopped100g samphireBritish butter Method • Boil eggs for five minutes-add a teaspoon of baking powder to the pan to aid easy peeling-and plunge into cold water. Peel and chop. • Poach haddock and salmon in milk with bay leaves for 10 minutes, until flesh flakes into thumb-sized pieces. Preserve the milk. • Pan fry the bacon with shallots and lemongrass. • Cook the oats with ground coriander, turmeric, chilli, saffron, fish stock, the poaching milk, lemon and lime (juice and rind). Add the cream at the last minute and salt to…

Sow courgettes The courgette is an unstoppable thing in early autumn, but it can be unstartable, too. On a piece of well-cultivated ground, work extra compost into the top layer to create an evenly ruffled surface. Sow three seeds in a group 3in apart, pushing them vertically into the soil, point downwards. Then construct a hat of chicken wire over the site and secure the edges, otherwise pigeons will help themselves. When seedlings emerge, select the most vigorous and decapitate the others.…

What did Andrew Willoughby do for a living? He must have been prosperous, as he was Mayor of Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, in 1683, later followed by his grandson Willoughby Chaplin. A 19th-century descendant married into the Stannus family of builders, architects and at least one artist, Anthony Carey Stannus (1830–1919). Willoughby gave a bell to the parish church and is further commemorated by a copper 1d trade token issued by him sold by Dix Noonan Webb for an unexpected £6,200 (estimate to £300), paid by an American collector. It was a record for any 17th-century British trade token.…

SPRING being a tough act to follow,’ according to Al Bernstein, ‘God created June.’ And what a June we are having here at the most westerly point of the British Isles. All our windows and doors are open to allow the breeze—a refreshing, effervescent breeze, scented with honeysuckle, gorse and salt—to circulate. Inside it is cool and adumbral, outside hot and bright. We are perched high, surrounded by small, furiously green fields and besieged by light. It bounces off the intensely blue sea and, in the distance, turns the silhouettes of three peninsulas—Mizen Head, Sheep’s Head and Bearavarious shades of hazy purple. It is now more than three months since we cut ourselves off from the world. Twice a week, the local grocery store leaves food and newspapers. Occasionally, the…

THE easing of the lockdown has unleashed a mini social whirl. For several nights in a row, in both warm and cold weather, we have found ourselves sitting in different squares, parks and gardens catching up with old friends at a social distance. It feels slightly artificial not to greet each other with an embrace or a kiss and to sit apart, but there is great joy in simply being in company after such a long period of separation. The children express their delight with disarming and touching openness. Meeting a school friend after 12 weeks, one of them simply stood smiling for several minutes and nodded dumb agreement at anything and everything that was said. At home, by contrast, life continues seemingly unchanged. The daily negotiations about homework, music…

Birds: An Anthology, edited by Jaqueline Mitchell (Bodleian Library, £16.99) One of the lasting memories of the past few months will be the amplified presence of birds in our daily lives, so this book could hardly be more timely. It comprises a mix of mostly historical, but some contemporary, poetry and prose, in themed chapters-the seasons, birds in flight, songsters, hawks and eagles, inland and outland birds-and is illustrated with exquisite woodcuts by the engraver/author Eric Fitch Daglish.…

ATHENA feels a special sympathy for students who are passing a milestone in their formal education this summer. Every set of public exams—whether GCSEs, A levels or Finals—constitutes a right of passage, so their cancellation or transposition home this year as a result of Covid-19 means a great deal. The pandemic, however, doesn’t only threaten exams, but the whole social experience of education. That’s a change that is already being felt at every level. Its full impact on universities next year is also now becoming apparent. Over the past few weeks, a number of universities have announced an intention to teach some or all of the next academic year online. More—and probably all—are likely to follow suit, given the anticipated need for social distancing into the winter and perhaps beyond.…

Simon Armitage’s new collection is Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems (Faber & Faber, £14.99). The inaugural winner of the Laurel Prize will be announced later this year (www.laurelprize.com) On cricket ‘My Dad and I used to watch Yorkshire’s score on Ceefax in the living room. If David Bairstow got to 50, we’d stand up and clap’ On the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth, the 11th Poet Laureate ‘He understood the essential contract between civilisation and Nature’ On Nature and the lockdown ‘You can hear the big engines and industries waiting to rev up again. I hope these clear skies, views and clean air are things people want to keep’…

The pigs • Napoleon (tyrannical rebellion leader): Joseph Stalin • Snowball (eloquent and intelligent, later scapegoat for the ills on Animal Farm): Leon Trotsky • Old Major (wise and articulate, the initial inspiration for rebellion): Vladimir Lenin or Karl Marx • Squealer (manipulative, Napoleon's mouthpiece): Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin's head of communications and propaganda The horses • Boxer (loyal 18hh workhorse): Russia's working classes • Mollie (shallow, materialistic, pulls a carriage): the bourgeois middle classes • Clover (a motherly mare): the women of the revolution The sheep An acquiescent population The goat • Muriel: the educated working classes The donkey • Benjamin (insightful and cynical about the revolution): Orwell himself?…

THERE are few scents as lusciously evocative as the tomato plant in full bloom. So thickly, exotically vegetal you could cut it with a scythe, one whiff is all it takes for me to be whisked back to my grandparents’ greenhouse and carefree, sun-baked East Sussex days spent in the pursuit of nothing much at all. Those tomatoes were sublime, possessed of a sweet intensity that makes my mouth water, nearly 40 years on. The memory may be heavily seasoned with nostalgia, but I don’t think I’ve ever tasted better. My obsession with the fruit is all encompassing. There’s no ingredient I love more, not even chillies. Growing up, there was always a bowl of tomatoes in the kitchen. My father ate them like apples, in two or three bites…

IF you take a stroll around London, you’re likely to spot a few of English Heritage’s iconic blue plaques, which mark the homes of famous writers, artists and other notable people, from military leaders to scientific innovators. Each year, a handful of new names is added to this impressive roster and, in March, English Heritage announced that this year’s list includes two leading female spies, who risked their lives on top-secret missions. Christine Granville was Britain’s longest-serving female agent during the Second World War and her daring exploits read like something from an adventure novel. Born Krystyna Skarbek, the daughter of a charming, but dissolute Polish aristocrat and a Jewish heiress, she grew up on a country estate in Trzepnica, riding horses, roaming the fields and sledging in winter. She…

Best Cleopatra ‘The contact of her presence,’ said Plutarch of the historical Cleopatra, ‘was irresistible.’ When it comes to Shakespeare’s play, I can’t think of anyone who has exemplified that better than Judi Dench in Peter Hall’s 1987 production. This was no Hollywood icon, but a real woman: capricious, volatile, changeable and funny. I remember how Dame Judi rushed for the door in affronted dignity on being told that Octavia, Antony’s Roman wife, was 30, but the crowning moment came with her description of the dead Antony (‘His legs bestrid the ocean’), which had the rapt intensity of someone reliving a dream. As Plutarch wrote of the real Cleopatra: ‘It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice.’ Best Hamlet I’ve measured out my life in…

Scilly swimming Christopher Woodward, director of the Garden Museum, is undertaking a 50-mile sponsored swim from Newlyn, Cornwall, to Tresco on the Isles of Scilly. The route follows a journey made by one of the museum's ‘patron saints', Cedric Morris (who travelled by boat), and aims to raise money to support the museum through the pandemic Cricket fans England will play the West Indies in three Test matches in July. The three-Test series will take place behind closed doors between July 8 and July 28, with two matches at Old Trafford and one at the Ageas Bowl in Hampshire Smelling the roses NGS members are re-opening their gardens, just in time for summer. Vsitors must pre-purchase tickets and a timeslot (www.ngs.org.uk).All proceeds will go to the Help Support Our…

JONATHAN SELF’S article ‘The great green cover-up’ (May 20) was sobering. His plan of action included the three Rs—reduce, re-use, recycle—but I would add a fourth: repair. There can be few of us who don’t recall, in a mid-20th-century household, the frequent use of a toolbox, a sewing box (both of which would include a goodly number of salvaged odds and ends) and a range of glues. Turning collars and cuffs is but a memory, yet extending the life of repairable and often loved items is something that is in need of a resurgence. George Hutchins, Cambridgeshire The writer of the letter of the week will win a bottle of Pol Roger Brut Réserve Champagne…

A FEW years ago, we spent three days lugging three generations of books down from the attic. When I came here as a bride, these once-loved books were on the shelves, but the marital rite of merging libraries—making way for the arrival of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullerssent into exile the rows of books on shooting, fishing, cricket and cattle farming in Argentina. The Attic Collection occupied every table in the house. A book dealer from Bungay was coming to have a look and, I hoped, take them away. My husband saw commercial potential; I hoped merely to avoid the tragedy of the books bringing down the ceiling in the rooms below. I say ‘a few years ago’, but that’s wrong. It was before Amazon and www.abebooks.…

This is probably the most useful item in any store cupboard, invaluable for thickening and flavouring stews and soups and as the basis for sauces. It will keep for a good six months Ingredients Fills one 1¾ pint/1 litre sterilised kilner jar4lb/2kg tomatoes2 bay leaves4 peeled cloves garlic1tbspn salt8oz/250g fresh shallots2tbspn sugar1 sprig thyme1tspn crushed white peppercorns Method Scald and slip the tomatoes out of their skins. Skin the shallots and halve them if they are large. Pack all the ingredients into the sterilised kilner jar (leave 1in/2½cm of empty space at the top). Seal and sterilise the jar, submerged into simmering water at 85˚C, for 30 minutes. Suggestions Use a ladleful as a topping for pizza (drain excess liquid first). Finish with grated cheese, anchovies and olives, then bake.…

Serves 4 Ingredients 600g Farrow's tinned giant marrow-fat peas2 spring onions, choppedDash of Potash Farm Kentish Walnut Oil2tbspn rapeseed-oil mayonnaise Squirt of black-garlic purée (The Garlic Farm UK)Pinch of ground alexanders seeds1tbspn lemon-balm oilBritish rock salt Method • Drain tins of marrowfat peas, keeping a little juice, and combine in a blender with the spring onions. • Add walnut oil for that avocado nuttiness, the rapeseed-oil mayonnaise and black-garlic purée for an exuberant mushy-pea-meets-Hockney colour. • Next, toss in some ground English black alexanders seeds-they grow wild and taste of pepper and aniseed -then the juice of lemon-balm leaves, which should be steeped overnight in rapeseed oil for that extra citric edge. Add salt to taste. • For a finale, king prawns-now being produced in fields in Lincolnshire-can be…

• This year's list focuses exclusively on women: in addition to Christine Granville and Noor Inayat Khan, it celebrates the sculptor Barbara Hepworth (pictured), botanist and military leader Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, as well as the former headquarters of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Women's Social and Political Union • The scheme was founded in 1866, and there are now more than 950 official blue plaques across Greater London, erected by the bodies that have successively run the scheme: the Royal Society of Arts, London County Council, Greater London Council and English Heritage • The first blue plaque was for the poet Lord Byron in 1867, but his house in Cavendish Square, London W1, was demolished in 1889; its site is now occupied by a John Lewis…

THE defence of Rorke’s Drift over the evening and night of January 22, 1879, when a force of about 160 British and colonial troops held off a Zulu army that outnumbered them 20 to one, was among the most celebrated engagements of Imperial history. Not only were there many acts of heroism—11 VCs and four DCMs were awarded—but it served to lessen the shame of the Battle of Isandlwana earlier that day, in which 1,300 British regulars had been overwhelmed. The Drift, or ford, was the site of a Swedish Lutheran mission that was being used as a depot and hospital by the invading British. The majority of the defenders were from the 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment, which became the South Wales Borderers two years later under the Childers reforms.…

IT is said St Swithun asked to be buried outside Winchester’s Old Minster, where raindrops would fall on his grave, but he didn’t stay there long. St Swithun’s day falls on July 15, and commemorates not the saint’s death of about 863, but the rainy 971 translation of his body to within the shelter of the church. Swithun’s inclement translation may go some way to explaining the traditional proverb concerning rain on St Swithun’s day, given here in 17th-century verse: In this month is St Swithin’s day; On which, if that it rain, they say Full forty days after it will Or more or less, some rain distill. This was so ingrained in the popular belief that one elder interviewed for an 1826 Guide to the Year by William Hone…