All Creatures Great and Sm

Two extraordinary incidents came to mind when re-visiting Landican Wood.  Well, perhaps many anecdotes came flooding back being there again after some 65 years.   I recall that the very muddy lane called Landican Lane was part of the 12 or 15 miles route we had to run from the School Playing Fields on Cross Country Days.  It was extremely deep mud and so exhausted everyone, as well as make us all very messy indeed.  Although I hated it it did lead me on when in the Army to run for Southern Command of the British Army and then join the Port Sunlight Athletic Club.  However, I diversify.  Landican Wood was on our list of places to check upon regularly for early Blue butterflies and a family of Green Woodpeckers ( also known as Yaffles due to their calls).  It started to rain heavily so we made our way to the lower wood and the river and where we knew that there was a water culvert in which to shelter.  We scrambled inside, the three of us and Toby the wee terrier.  Then there was torrential rain for a few minutes and we worried about the water level rising so kept a weather eye upon the level.  The culvert brought water down off the hill and into the river which then fed into the River Mersey.   Looking along the culvert to the other side we noticed that a water vole had appeared, also sheltering from the rain.  He looked warily at us, but we spoke softly to him and waved our hands slowly.  He shook the rain from his fur, turned his back upon us and continued preening, glancing up at the rain occasionally.  We called him Ratty, after the name given to such a vole by Kenneth Graham in Wind in the Willows.  Then the rain suddenly stopped and heat began to rise from the water as it was such a hot summer day.  Ratty turned around to look at us and then vanished into the river with a plop.  We were all sad to see him go and agreed that this was a rare experience.  Toby had his whiskers bristling and his ears cocked, also sad that Ratty had gone about vole business again.  We emerged and continued our search and found a swarm of Large Blue butterflies on the hill slope amongst the wild flowers.   No sign of our woodpecker family though.  The undergrowth was sodden so we did not venture further but retreated to where our bicycles were behind the hedge and retreated out of the rain threatening clouds.   The following day  was to be even more extraordinary.

We were all in the Rangiora Rover Scout Crew;  the only Rover Crew in the Wirral at that time.  We had been seeking a new place to meet and had put out feelers.  A man whose name sounded familiar, had telephoned us and invited us to his house where, he said, was ample room for us to meet, free of charge.  Now that was well worth taking up as an investigation. Was there a catch in it?  The seven of us all cycled across the Wirral to Poulton Hall, Poulton Lacey.  Our inviter was Roger de Lancelyn Green.  The Lancelyn Greens had lived at Poulton Hall for over 900 years and were well known not just as local folk.  Roger was Reader at Liverpool University at that time.  Prior to that he was at Merton College, Oxford, and was a member of the Inklings Club which comprised CV.S. Lewis, who was his tutor up at Oxford, J.R.R. Tolkein and others.  Roger invited us in to his rambling country house and ushered us into the Library and served us afternoon tea with lashings of cakes, I seem to remember.  He was a well known author of children's books, editor and biographer and had written books on the Sagas, Robin Hood, King Arthur and Greek mythology for children.  It was he who suggested to Lewis that Lewis call his book the Chronicles of Narnia.   I had read one of his books - The Saga of Asgard, and we discussed it.  After tea he showed us around and suggested a room which might suit us.  It was a lovely room but after discussion we felt it was too far away from where most of us lived and the cycle ride in bad weather would be awful so we politely declined his kind offer and explained why, which he quite understood.  However, he invited us back for tea and a chat on a monthly basis.   A few of us took him up and we returned monthly and drank heavily - tea of course, and ate lovely cakes and sandwiches at 4pm.  We chatted in the lovely library full of fascinating books and literary papers which I browsed rather than chatted, to Roger's amusement.  We put the world to right and discussed philosophy, the art of writing, linguistics and oh, we discussed cabbages and kings.  Looking back I believe Roger was lonely and missed the company of young men at the Inklings Club in Oxford.   At first I thought he wanted to join the Rover Crew but then realised that he just missed company.   He died young in 1987 at 68 yrs old.  His son, also a well known author, Richard Lancelyn Green, committed suicide.  His daughter Priscilla was also a well known author.  Looking back I realise that we were all extremely lucky to have met Roger de Lancelyn Green, one of those notable people who go down in history.  He certainly encouraged me in my love of literature.

Poulton Hall, Wirral & Roger de Lancelyn Green.

Are Rules there to be broken?

St Benedict of Nursia, AD543.

Today is the Feast of Benedict who is perhaps best known for founding monasteries in Italy, particularly the well known one called Monte Casino which was devastated during the War as the Germans made it an HQ.  Many lives were lost in the famous battle of Monte Casino.   Benedict is also known the world over for his Rule of life which all his brothers followed as Religious do today, including my own monastery at Mirfield.   I am showing a photograph below of the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield to which I belong.   The Rule is perhaps modified somewhat for today's world but remains essentially the same as when it was first written.   One could not say that the Rules are there to be broken, but modified to suit today's world.  Breaking Rules brings forth consequences in any form of life, including family life, marriage rules, politics and business protocols.   Then there are unwritten rules in life as say between friends and relatives.   Friends and relatives actually help us curb our excesses and outbursts, for fear of offending or distressing them.   Having a rant is different as it requires a sympathetic ear.  Facebook writers often rant and their Friends all read the rant, sometimes clicking 'like'  and sometimes commenting empathetically - hopefully.   Always in Benedict's Rule is the need to show respect and to be obedient to ones in authority over you.   This does not mean in my book, remaining silent when injustices are happening to people.  I am afraid I often have a rant and can get carried away when I see injustices happening.   My present rant is of course the UK government's continuous barrage of negativity and threats towards Scotland if we vote to separate from the UK.  I believe that their continuous attacks on everything we suggest will have the opposite result to what they want.  Their punishment after the referendum is obvious.  God knows what will happen to us if we vote to stay part of the UK as of course they are spending a great deal of money in opposing everything our own government are planning.   Will they continue to punish us afterwards?  I hate to think.   Then there is the question of human trafficking throughout the uk from abroad with little or no border control to stop this happening.  We now have beggars on our streets, some of whom are well dressed foreigners who go down on their knees in front of you pleading for money for food.  I am very angry that the uk government allow this to happen and then refuse them State Benefits.   They should either impose strict border controls to stop them enervating such an overcrowded island or allow emergency relief, but Cameron's government say that the Big Society will deal with it all.  It took me a while to conclude that he meant us!  As a Christian he has put us all in a dilemma of conscience.   Should we not challenge the uk government about that?  The Church always did feed the poor etc but then we all developed the Welfare State as the politicians took responsibility on behalf of us all, allowing everyone equal opportunities to resources.   Hereby ends my rant for St Benedict's Day.

Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield.

Days on the hill.

St Cuthbert, AD687.

The Isle of Lewis is a favourite haunt of ours, which we have visited many times.  The west coast of the 'Long Isle' is particularly beautiful and spectacular.   Today we remember the Feast Day of Cuthbert of Inner Farne, as I'm sure he would liked to have been called.  He loved the Abbey at Melrose where he was Prior but his particular love was for the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne and the remote Inner Farne where he would go on Retreat to pray and commune with nature for, being a brother of the Celtic Church originally, he had a special relationships with both poor people and God's flora and fauna.   He would have been happy here as well, I believe, amidst the machar, seabirds, peat stacks and spiritual, Gaelic speaking people.

I had walked past Baile na Cille at Timsgearidh, Uig, a splendid former Manse of the Kirk which has a sad history of years gone by.   Then on along the coast passing Ardroil and looking along the sand dunes to the bay where it is reputed that the famous LewisViking Chessmen were found.  Another report in the historical archives of the locality locates the find at Tigh nan Caileachan Dubh, Brenis. Ardroil used to be a flourishing township up until the Clearances.  A few crofts and houses remain including an old schoolhouse recently re-painted in a hideous dark green paint.   I struck off across the peat hags, following the tracks made by peat cutters between drying stacks and thought I was completely alone.  Then I was aware that I was not alone.  A Gold Plover eyed me from the top of a peat stack and flew off as I approached.  Then he appeared again, behind me, eyeing me with curiosity and interest.  I kept walking and another appeared, then another, all atop peat stacks for a better view.  This seemed to be a game.  They were all in winter plumage for Spring and the nesting season was still to come.   Above, a buzzard slowly wheeled on the thermals, letting out a bleat now and again as he searched the terrain below.   Then another appeared and they did aerobatics on the thermals;  a joy to observe.   Soon I was passing through Islivig hamlet and the ruined Naval Air Station Radar installation, set up to watch the Western Approaches during the war.  Islivig interests me as in the Sagas a Bishop Islif of Iceland sent monks to set up a Seminary here as of course it was a Viking settlement and part of the Old Norse Kingdom.   Whilst there is no direct trace of the Seminary now I did wonder why the RNAS cookhouse with its water tower was perched on a hill to this day.  The answer lay in the availability of drinking water from a well there.   Just beyond Islivig (the inlet of Bishop Islif) by Brenis  lies Tigh nan Caileachan Dubh ( House of the old black women, or convent), lying between the road and the sea, with a lovely beach and a natural rock amphitheatre.
Now why would there be a convent here in this remote place?  To serve the nearby Seminary of course!   The ruins show that there was a community of about say 20 here with a chapel, individual houses, a hospital and a dining hall.  The beach afforded access to fishing and it is in walking distance of Islivig.

I sat on a stone in the amphitheatre and said a prayer, for this was a continuous house of prayer, and imagined the Holy Eucharist and the the sermon being delivered from the largest stone, like a pulpit. Then I was drawn, as may be the nuns were to the diving of the gannets between the shore and the Isle of Mealista.   Mealisval stood high above the landscape, with a hint of snow on the tops.   I resumed my walk beyond the end of the road, passing the final gate marked 'Grazing' and met some young men in climbing gear.  We stopped to pass the day.   They were climbing Mealisval.  I was able to tell them that I was there early this morning on the top and it was pretty boggy in places.  They looked quizzically at me, an old(er) man with a walking stick.   I had to laugh to myself for earlier my friend from Baile na Cille's wife who is a helicopter pilot, had collected me and flew both my wife and i to the summit and had set down briefly on the summit.  We alighted and could honestly say we had been on the summit and described it as stated!

Later in the day I had driven to Gisla, left the car and walked for a while, passing the Keeper's cottage and struck off across the moor to see the beehive huts marked on the OS map.  On the skyline I spotted McDonald, the Keeper waving to us.   We changed direction to meet up and chat.  We explained where we were headed.  He said that they were not much to see but suggested we change direction to another site nearby not on the OS map where the beehives were better preserved.  We thanked him. He asked if we had been to Harris and we said that we had.  He said: 'The folk of Harris are strange folk;  black haired, unlike us Norsemen.  They are from Denmark!'   To this day Harris folk rarely visit Lewis, and vice-versa, as they are ethnically different peoples.   McDonald was over 6 ft tall with a shock of reddish hair.  He asked for my mother's maiden name and I replied Sutherland, of Halkirk.  'Ah', he said, 'Sudrland, so ye are Old Norse too?'  "In part yes, but my paternal family name is Vahey - or O'Fothaidh."  'Well, ye canna help being part Irish, but many of the Irish are Old Norse too ye know!'   We then chatted about the grouse season and the predators he has to keep an eye on.  He concluded by saying that he was also the Stalker as the Estate has a good herd of red deer on the hill.  He swung his telescope case from under his arm, crooked it onto his Lambing Stick and sunk to the heather, focussing on the moor opposite.  'There they are;  have a look for yourself', handing over the stick and telescope.  After a few seconds I was able to see them just below the skyline, oblivious to us as we were downwind.   He invited us for a cup of tea if we passed his house and bade farewell, striding off across the moor towards his house.   We moved on and found the beehive huts and wondered at their occupants from over two thousand years ago and why on earth they had chosen to live here.

Returning towards Gisla we marvelled at the majestic scenery and could see why the Viklings loved it here as it was reminiscent of the Icelandic scenery, but warmer.   A whirring noise made us both look up and scan the sky.  Then we saw a number of Jack Snipe diving and rising again.  When diving the wind rippled through their flight feathers.  This diving and rising is a peculiar habit of all snipe and this was certainly their preferred terrain.  They were difficult to spot as they are so quick.
Leaving the moor and taking to the road towards Gisla we passed a bus shelter which reminded us of the beehive structures high on the moor.  Sensibly yet simply constructed one could hide from the rain and wind, even if the elements changed direction.   Then to Gisla and the wood carver's house.  There is a Gisla in the Vestlands area of Iceland but during the Clearances the English overlords cleared the sizeable township of everyone and put them aboard ships and sent them to Canada.  Most Gisla folk ended up around Quebec.   Modern Gisla is as remote and as sparkly populated as its Icelandic counterpart.

A bus shelter, or modern beehive hut!

'Whirring' snipe on the moor above Gisla.

Golden Plover on the peat stack.

Beehive hut ruins

Squirrels and butterfly habits.

St Joseph, cAD18.

Much has been said about the foreign intrusion of the more aggressive and larger American Grey Squirrel usurping the native species of Red Squirrels.   Along the mixed wooded Storeton Ridge the Grey Squirrel predominated.   A few miles away in Mount Wood, a pinewood of firs and pines, only the Red Squirrel predominates, with no sign of the Greys at all there.   The Greys seem to prefer more mixed woodlands and gardens, and the Reds seem to prefer the pinewoods and the profusion of pine cones, all full of seeds.   Perhaps the different habitats is connected with food habits rather than intolerance, one species to another.

I am always reading of the scarcity of butterflies, particularly the blame of farming methods and the use of insecticides.   Again, whilst I am sure that the use of chemicals on flora and fauna is partly to blame I have come across pockets of countryside where certain species of butterfly persist.  In my own garden I have counted Red Admiral, Cabbage White, Common Blue and other species after planting say Buddleia bushes.   I have found clouds of Small Blue and clouds of Common Blue on the slopes of the machar in the Outer Hebrides, whilst reading reports of their scarcity in south England.   This may well be the result of farming methods down south whereas the machar in the Long Isle of different islands is protected by law and is an area of  Special Scientific Interest.  Crofters do not farm it at all.

More on hunting.

Tuesday a.m., 18 March 2014.  +Cyril of Jerusalem, AD386.

When walking along Keeper's Lane, Storeton on my regular foray across the fields of the Leverhulme Estate and always via Rake Hey Covert I remembered old Aongus Morrison's words as Head Keeper, about hunting when I asked him about hunting after the meet of the Royal Rock Beagle Hunt.  He reminded me that the Cheshire Forest Hunt also met annually on Boxing Day at Storeton Hall Farm, the venue of the Royal Rock as well.  Although the Royal Rock rarely meet here, their kennels were then at Ledsham Station, a good few miles away from Storeton.   Aongus did not approve of hunting for sport;  these being the days after the War when hunting was legal.  He explained that rearing pheasants in a clearing in Rake Hey naturally brought predators there.  He safeguarded his chicks with a strong wire mesh fence and ensured his charges were in the henhouse at night.   If foxes or rats attempted to dig beneath the wire mesh they were met by exploding percussion caps.  The explosions were not loud but sufficient to deter them.  They were re-set daily to ensure that the predators learned, like Pavlov's dogs, that they were unwelcome there.  He knew were all the predators on the estate were and allowed stoats, weasels, sparrow hawks, and foxes etc free reign to live.  If he knew a fox was getting old and say diseased and may infect the others in the fox lair he would despatch it quickly with a single shot and then bury the animal deep in the soil some distance away from the lair.

I then asked him about stoats and weasels as they, like crows, were opportunistic.  He explained that that was given by God to them and again, he would deter them from taking chicks or eggs but not kill them necessarily.   To kill them would upset God's balance in nature.

The Royal Rock Beagle Hunt, founded in the 1920's.

Ember days in the Wirral.

Friday, 14 March 2014.  Ember Day in Lent.

Today is a sort of day of reflection in the Church Year as well as a season of purple reflection, so to speak.

I returned to a childhood area after 71 years.  Once this was always by cycle but now by car. Motoring down Lever Causeway passing Little Storeton village and then around the bend came Storeton Hall Farm.  It was always well kept and the farm tenant had good husbandry.  Fences were all well maintained and the farmyard was always kept immaculate.  Hedges were trimmed regularly and field drains maintained.  It was a mixed farm with a milking herd of Friesians, pigs, horses and a lot of the land was under plough.  The Tack yard was always spruce and they had liveried horses so it was very popular with riders.  It looked the same as I drove slowly past the farm.  Turning into Storeton village at the back door of the farm I saw that the Tack yard was now a Vet Practice.  I parked the car on the side of the narrow road and walked down the narrow lane towards Storeton Home Farm, passing the Keeper's cottage where we used to leave our bikes in the 1950's.  Aongus Morrison, Head Keeper is long dead but I recalled fondly his tuition about wild life.  We always learned from him and he taught us about flora and fauna and the ways of birds and animals.  He always said we must always respect the tiniest of creatures for they are part of God's Plan for the world. He was a former stalker and ghillie on the Royal Estates in Scotland, hailing from Montrose.  A piper to the Cameronian Rifles in WW1 he would often play for us if we requested.  Once I asked him about being a piper in wartime.  He didn't answer, but lifted the pipes and played Flowers of the Forest.  The piobreachd floated across the fields in a haunting.  I noticed that he had tears in his eyes but he never answered the question verbally, nor did he need to.   We departed in silence for the fields and woods nearby.  The memory still haunted me as I remembered him fondly.  I walked on towards the Home Farm, once a poor farm indeed of 23 acres, a herd of a dozen milking Friesians and I recall old Mr Reid the farmer dying and his elderly, single daughter taking it on along with a somewhat surly farmhand.  The farmland was not in good order.  I think that she simply could not cope and the farmhand did the minimal required.  Now the farmhouse looked brand new and was no longer a farm as the barn which I remembered well, was now a covered warehouse for farm machinery and stacks upon stacks of wall and roof tiles.  Obviously it was now a thriving business, which was good.  Cutting through the farm buildings I struck off across the home field to the closed causeway leading to Thornton Manor.  Crossing it I aimed for Rake Hey Covert, remembering to enter not by the main ride stile but from the south side by the long grass and heavy old beech trees.  Some of the beeches had fallen and were rotting.  One I remember well was still there, much bigger.  I recalled lying in the long grass here and watching the spitfires chasing ME109's high in the blue sky in dogfights, then after the planes departed hearing the skylark high in the sky singing his heart out.  The trick was to spot him as he was so tiny.  I didn't succeed often.  Today though, no dogfights and sadly, no skylarks.
Walking carefully through the wood, taking care not to put up the wood pigeons with their alarm calls of flapping wings I settled down with my back against a big beech tree and just waited.  After 20 minutes or so I heard a rustle, but it was only Billy Blackbird turning over leaves.  He saw me and flew off with a chip, chip alarm call.  Then another rustle and there was a hare lolling through the wood at a pace towards the bottom field with its clumps of marram grass to afford cover, as well as the dips and hollows there.  I again recalled the Royal Rock Beagle Hunt meeting in Storeton village one Saturday and they arrived at Rake Hey whilst Vic and I were there.  The Huntsman deployed the hounds to the edge of the covert where there is a ditch.  They gave tongue and set off at a pace along the hedge bottom, the Master, Whipper-Ins and hunt followers on foot running behind.  We thought that was curious as we knew about hares and they did not run along hedge bottoms and ditches.  One hunt follower, a buxom teenage girl in bright red jodhpurs got her jodhpurs caught in the barbed wire fence.  Being gentlemen we eased her out of the wire and she thanked us before running with difficulty after the hunt, now over a field away from us going downhill.  We went in the opposite direction and walked to the top of the ridge away from the hunt and settled down to watch this fascinating escapade develop.  Sure enough, along came the hare uphill towards us as hares have longer hind legs than forelegs and so always turn uphill.  Now why didm;'t the Huntsman know that? As the hare approached we knelt down, arms outstretched and sure enough the hare ran into our open arms and we cuddled the frightened animal.  Hare eyes are perfect for seeing to the side and backwards but they cannot see straight ahead and so our hare did not see us.  We watched the hunt at a distance and we could see that hounds had lost the scent down the hill.  Our hare soon calmed so we gently laid him down, stroked him and off he went at a walk first, then a dollop, away from the hunt.  Later we spotted him about 100 yards away looking at us and washing his ears.  We had to laugh.
Who says animals don't have feelings or don't know how to relate to us?

Change in all around I see...

Wednesday, 29 January 2014. Looking around locally, even globally, we see change all around us. The worldwide Church is splitting further and is wrestling with homophobia and in the case of the RC Church, of harbouring and secreting away sexually abusive priests, thus avoiding the criminal law and making people afraid of reporting them for fear of ex-communication. Christians are now killing Muslims in some countries, in retaliation for Muslim atrocities towards Christians. In the field of politics, revolutions are occurring in many countries, notably the Middle East and Africa where medieval tribal factions feel threatened by loss of power. The lack of formal and even basic education and healthcare provision fuels the resentment of those who live in countries where education and healthcare are normal practice. Even in the so-called enlightened western countries there is distrust of politicians and governments as corruption is rife. Financial cutbacks see many people on the breadline in the UK whilst the Tories ensure that jobs and industry flourish in their heartlands of SE England. Scotland, a nation in its own right of some 4.5 million people, has the audacity again to punch above its weight and hold a referendum on a break from the UK ( from the stranglehold of the SE of England really )and the 70 odd million people in England pour scorn on the Scots and threaten sanctions against the Scots for even daring to wriggle away from their control. The banks are undergoing massive change as they seek to find basic ethics instead of being, as Etzioni calls it, an institution which services only itself and has no relation at all to the reason for which it was set up initially. Then we have changes in the global weather picture with flooding, heavy snow and drought, all when not expected. Oddly enough, such changes are not new as down through history we have witnessed major changes in society as society and the world adapt to new changes in which to live. Changes in the worldwide Church are to be expected and welcomed, for the Church is simply the means by which we as people worship God and help others. The structure of society is changing and necessarily so in order to accommodate the poor and under-privileged. We try vainly to keep up to date and be 'with it', but as one old friend admitted, he can no longer keep up with massive and frequent change round about him. Does the picture of fine dining at Glasgow Art Club represent being stuck in the old fashioned past, or is it something which we will embrace the more as changes occur all around us?