Recounting memories isn’t just the realm of the grandpa gently rocking to and fro  in his favourite chair, as I was graphically reminded this week. I visited a young farm hand who recalled vivid and moving memories of the devastation caused by the foot and mouth disease back in 2001 when he was just 13. His father was a herdsman and he had been brought up around the cows each of which he knew personally. Not only did he watch them being slaughtered in the sheds where he helped milk the cows he also saw the bodies for several days afterwards as they laid piled up in the farm silo clamp. It’s a memory that will never go away for this young man who is still sad – and bitter about the way the whole affair was dealt with by the government and Defra. I’ll be telling his story in a future issue of The Countryman and I’ve no doubt he will be recounting it when he’s a grandpa in his rocking chair.
On a more cheerful note… the weather has perked up the hedgerows in these parts, helping us in the north catch up with the south for colour. Where I live the majority of field boundaries are drystone walls so this shot which I took yesterday through blossom and cowslips offering a view across a buttercup meadow was extremely uplifting.

‘You gotta be joking,’ I told a friend who called me on to say he was going to the Lake District to take some pictures, and asked if I wanted to go with him.
‘On a Bank Holiday Monday? No way,’ I replied ‘…unless you want to set off at sunrise.’
He didn’t recognise my sarcasm: ‘OK, 4.30am it is then. We should get some great light,’ he added with an air of authority in photography which, he won’t mind me saying, doesn’t always match his results. But like me, he benefits from the virtues of digital photography where endless pressing of the shutter button is bound to bring something worth keeping… isn’t it?
More importantly the camera gives me another reason for getting out in the countryside and there is so much to see and hear early in the day. The Lake District honeypots have a different personality before the tourists arrive; driving is less stressful and the short, popular walks become a pleasure rather than a chore.
I’m not knocking tourism, the district couldn’t survive without the visitors but places like beautiful Buttermere at 6am on a glorious morning was heavenly without them choking up the place.
While I listened to chorus of birds in the woods around Derwentwater my pal was being startled by a deer… and of course he didn’t get a shot of it.
I was back home and writing this before my teenage son had crawled out of his pit, and judging by the traffic heading that way, the Lake District was about to have one of its busiest days of the year.

A while back, following some strong winds (and a fair bit of neglect on my part) my garden gate broke off the pole affixed to the wall. Now the gate languishes in the back yard awaiting its fate. I called at a local joinery to ask about a replacement, and an elderly chap proudly showed me a ring binder in which were a dozen of his carefully drawn designs. Amazing, I thought, how just a few pieces of wood can be combined to make such a variety of styles. Ever since then I’ve been looking at farm gates, photos and drawings to see if there are greatly differing styles around the British countryside. I also searched through the Countryman archives and came across these illustrations - I’m not sure if they are typical of the areas or just one-offs… I’d be happy to hear from someone in the know. Is there a name for gate collecting? (Polite answers only please.) Meanwhile the future of my gate ‘hangs’ in the balance.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) today (Monday) announces its optimistic vision for the future of the English countryside,  2026 – A Vision for the Countryside, describing what the charity wants to see in 2026, its centenary year. The CPRE pictures a countryside that is used and valued by everyone, helping create a healthier, less stressed nation where people are in tune with the environment and aware of their impact on it. Shaun Spiers, CPRE Chief Executive and Countryman columnist, says: ‘There tends to be an unrelenting pessimism that our countryside won’t survive the pressures it faces from built development, climate change and the impacts of globalisation. There is worryingly little confidence that the countryside can actually be improved – that it can become more beautiful and richer in wildlife, with well designed and well planned developments that contribute to both its appearance and its vitality.  But that is our vision and we are confident that with the right political and civic leadership and a consensus on how we should value and safeguard our rural heritage, this vision can be achieved.’
Who can possibly argue with these sentiments? Unfortunately, there are many: some landowners for starters, reluctant to give up hundreds of years of history, power and ownership; the building developers eager to make a quick profit; the big companies out to exploit the countryside whatever the consequences might be on the landscape. There are politicians bowing to pressure to win votes; there are millions of city dwellers who believe money could be better spent in their back yards; there are the giant supermarkets ruining farms and farmers for the sake of profit for their shareholders.
Despite sounding like an elderly, hard-bitten parent pouring cold water on a young teenager’s enthusiasm, I believe the CPRE’s vision is highly commendable and shall be backing it whenever I can; I just hope those with more selfish ambitions can be persuaded to change their ways and help make this dream a reality.
For full details of the vision  see www.cpre.org.uk

The village where I live still holds annual Maypole dancing when the children of the local junior school put on an entertaining display for the whole community and visitors. It’s great to see countryside traditions being continued by new generations. This year’s event took place on Saturday and it was blessed with some fine if blustery weather. The village is bisected by a busy road which leads to the Lake District and western Dales and the event often causes traffic to queue. Some drivers become impatient but one couple, standing next to me while the dancing was going on, said they’d pulled in to see what was happening rather than wait in the car. The lady was almost moved to tears as she watched the colourful ceremony and the efforts of the children, saying she didn’t realise events like this existed. Maybe her reaction shows what kind of society we’ve become; our minds restricted by what appears on TV or what we see through the car window - there are actually places where the community matters and where children are not all hooligans. Life might not always be idyllic in the countryside but it does have many memorable moments.