The Countryman's Daughter

Something that saddens me is the decline in traditional games played as a family. Growing up I was a big fan of board games like Frustration, Buckaroo, Draughts, Cluedo, and Backgammon.

My love of games continued into adulthood, and then on into parenthood, and when my children were very little, we played a number of board games alongside Hide and Seek, Blind Man’s Buff and treasure hunts. But as they grew older, the lure of technology beckoned and the old games were played less and less, eventually becoming solely a Christmas activity forced upon them by a mother desperate to cling on to the past. I would subject the family to rounds of Pictionary, or Trivial Pursuit, or to ‘parlour’ games like charades, or ‘The Name Game’ (where you all write down 20 names of famous people on pieces of paper that are folded and thrown into a bowl. Then, playing in teams, you get 30 seconds to describe as many as you can while your team guesses). It’s one of those games that the whole family, from youngsters to grandparents, are supposed to enjoy, although it baffled me that not everyone was as enthusiastic about it as me. 

This sentiment is echoed by my dad in his column from 29^th November 1980 when the fear of advancing technology was already taking hold. A friend had asked him if he knew of any suitable games for children to play indoors. He wrote: ‘In a modern society, this is not easy because there are so many intriguing games which can be bought and which today operate with the help of miniature computers and electronic gadgetry.’

He was referring to things like ‘Pong’, a 1970s electronic game that mimicked table tennis with two people ‘batting’ a ‘ball’ backwards and forwards across a screen. It was one of the first consoles that you could plug into the TV to play. My best friend had one and I coveted it, begging to have a go whenever I visited her. By 1980, more sophisticated video games had begun to appear, the most famous being Pac-Man, where the object was to eat as many dots in a maze as you could without crashing into the coloured ghosts along the route. It started out as something you could only play when visiting a town centre arcade, but soon, home-based consoles were developed and were instantly popular. Other electronic games soon followed, such as Donkey Kong and Space Invaders, which although extremely simple by today’s standards, were nevertheless incredibly popular with a young generation ready to embrace the age of the computer.

‘Playing games’ evolved into ‘gaming’, and a whole new era of internet-based entertainment for the youth dawned. I wonder what our forebears would make of the idea of young people sitting alone in their bedrooms playing games with their peers miles away, often living on different continents and in different time zones. It would have blown their minds! The sad thing is that these are not games that many play together as a family. 

Continue reading “Game for anything”

After I left school at 18, I embarked on the exciting adventure of a gap year abroad, spending mine with a family in the city of Athens, Greece. I was going to study Greek and Roman culture at university, and was keen to visit the ancient land I’d heard and read so much about. Although hard in the beginning, being as it was a massive culture shock for this closeted Yorkshire lass, I ended up loving my time there and became very fond of the family who hosted me.

One of the things that surprised me was how much I enjoyed Greek cuisine. Until that age, I was very unadventurous when it came to food, and was happy to stay in my ‘meat and two veg’ comfort zone until, that is, I was faced with no alternative but to eat Greek food.

I discovered the delights of local delicacies such dolmades (rice wrapped in vine leaves), souvlaki (small kebabs with mint dressing), spanakopita (cheese and spinach pie), kleftedes (meat balls), moussaka (aubergine bake), kolokythakia (fried courgette), and baklava (filo pastry with honey and crushed nuts) to name just a few. Despite the abundance of rich food, one of my favourites was the simple Greek salad made with tomatoes, feta cheese, onions and olives. It would be liberally doused with oil made from olives grown by the family themselves and stored in enormous urns in the cellar. I had never had anything as exotic as olive oil before, and despite not being particularly fond of olives, the oil was another matter entirely. I grew to love it, and most foods were either cooked in it, or sprinkled with it. It might explain why I came back from Greece rather larger than when I went!

The best part of having a Greek salad came at the end. Bits of cheese would crumble off while you were eating, and finish up at the bottom of the bowl along with the oil and tomato juice. It was perfectly acceptable, in fact almost obligatory, to break off some bread and mop up all the delicious remains of the salad. The Greeks even had a name for the practice – ‘papara’. 

The family with whom I stayed were not shy about how fantastic they thought their food was compared to ours. They described English cuisine as stodgy, bland and overcooked, which in the 1980s was probably an accurate description. I’m glad to say that these days, our country’s reputation has dramatically improved, and we have some of the best chefs cooking exquisite menus in some of the finest restaurants in the world. 

One of the traditions that the Greeks just couldn’t get their heads around was why we often served savoury foods with sweet accompaniments. I can still remember the grimace on my host Laura’s face when she talked about us serving pork with apple, or duck with orange, or turkey with cranberry sauce. In her mind sweet and savoury never belonged on the same plate.

She recoiled in horror at the mention of gammon with pineapple, and pineapple on pizzas too, or dates with bacon and pear with Stilton. She would definitely not have approved of our tradition of serving cheese with grapes either, never mind a custom that my dad describes in his column from 22^nd November 1980. He says: ‘In Yorkshire, we like to eat our cheese with apple pie, for it is said that apple pie without a cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.’ And here’s me thinking us Yorkshire folk preferred our apple pie with custard! (I would be delighted to hear if any of you still do it, or whether you eat any other unusual sweet/savoury combinations).

Another tradition of which my Greek host would disapprove is that of serving Wensleydale cheese with Christmas cake. I mean, it has to be one of the best combinations, but I’m not sure she would have ever been persuaded to try it, nor to try it with gingerbread, another Christmas treat that my dad mentions. However, this was the 1980s, so perhaps the Greek palate  would be more open to it today. 

Having said that, though, I have a feeling that Laura would express her opinion in no uncertain terms when she learned that this year, one of my favourite salads has been salty Greek feta with sweet pomegranate seeds. 

Read more at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 20th Nov and the Gazette & Herald on 18th Nov 2020

When it comes to enjoying food, in my opinion, there are two opposing camps. Those who like sweet things and those who prefer savoury. I’m definitely in the latter camp, and will forgo a pudding in favour of a starter, or if I am going for the full three courses, then will likely choose a cheese plate to follow my mains. 

I think this is because I love the taste of salt far more than I should. This flavour-enhancing mineral has had a bad reputation over the years, and in the 1990s when my children were little, it was considered almost irresponsible to add it to any food I cooked for them. I remember confessing to my GP that I thought I ate too much of it, but that I couldn’t really give it up. She asked me how much exercise I did, and when I explained that I played squash and tennis several times a week, she told me to stop worrying as I’d be losing a lot of salt through perspiration. The burden of salt-guilt was suddenly lifted, which I’m not sure was an entirely good thing as I’m now maybe too liberal with the seasoning!

It’s true that too much salt is bad for you, and can contribute to the development of cardio-vascular diseases, and the producers of fast food and ready-made meals have certainly been guilty of over-loading their products with the stuff over the years. But the thinking these days is that moderation is the key, and as long as you limit how much of it you consume, you can enjoy it on your food and in your cooking. It is recommended that you eat no more than 5g a day.

It is still the case that if I spill any, I will throw it over my left shoulder, much to my kids’ amusement as when I do it, they think I’m suffering from some kind of momentary arm spasm. And when I explain that it’s to ward off any bad luck caused by the spilling of the salt, they then google the phone number of the nearest therapist.

But the association of luck and salt goes back many centuries, although I wasn’t sure how far until I read my dad’s column from 15^th November 1980. He said that the old superstition may even date back to the Romans. Apparently, when the Romans sacrificed animals to the gods, salt was placed on the unfortunate’s head, and if any were spilled, it was a portent of doom. To avoid this, the livestock would be given fodder beforehand which was adulterated with a drug to keep them docile. 

Salt was also associated with friendship as it was an incorruptible mineral, and therefore if it was spilled between friends, it meant that the relationship was under threat. To counteract this, the spilt salt had to be thrown over the left shoulder. Similarly, if salt was spilled between two people at dinner, then that was a portent of a future argument.

It always had to be the left shoulder for the tossing of the salt as this was the side upon which evil lurked. The salt would land in the face of the malevolent spirit who would then be blinded and prevented from carrying out their nefarious plans.

Another superstition was to carry a pinch of salt around in your pocket. It purportedly helped businessmen negotiate successful deals, and at night time, protected the carrier from potential misfortunes concealed within the darkness. It was also used to guard children from the malicious attentions of any passing witches. It was well known that sorceresses had to count every grain of salt in the vicinity before they were permitted to cast any spells, so by having it nearby, the child could be spirited away while she embarked on the laborious task. 

The symbolism of spilled salt is possibly most famously depicted in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. The mural was created between 1495 and 1498 and rests eight feet up from the ground in the refectory of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. It depicts the moment when Christ announces that one of the 13 apostles at the table would betray him.

It is easy to identify Judas sitting a little to the right of Jesus, thanks to the upturned salt cellar just by his arm. 

Read more at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 13th October and the Gazette & Herald on 11th October 2020

I came across an article the other day about a record level of knot landing on the Norfolk coast at the RSPB reserve at Snettisham. Around 140,000 of them have been seen, compared to the previous record set there in the winter of 1990-91 where 120,000 were spotted. The numbers caused quite a stir within the bird-watching community, and films of their sweeping murmurations are well worth a watch online.

The reason the story caught my eye was because I had just been researching my column by reading my dad’s Countryman’s Diary from this week in 1980 where he talks about the knot. The coincidence struck me because, being only familiar with more recognisable members of our avian population, I had no idea there was even a bird called a knot. And suddenly, here were two articles about it, written 40 years apart, and which I picked up on the same day. I think that is what we might call serendipity.

For those of you who don’t know, a knot is a chubby, short-legged wading bird about 25cm in length from the sandpiper family. A curious feature is that its plumage changes colour according to the season and at this time of year, it has grey upper plumage, and a white lower body, whereas in summer it has a more browny upper body, with a brick red chest. It undertakes one of the longest migrations of any animal, starting from its Arctic breeding grounds and heading south to the coasts of Europe, Africa and Australia, stopping to grace us with its presence en route. 

As my dad mentions in his 8^th November 1980 column, there are two theories as to how it got its peculiar name, one of which is that it comes from its hoarse cry of ‘knut knut’. I’ve had a listen online and I’m not sure that’s how I’d describe it, though. The other suggestion is that this bird, in Latin known as calidris canutus, is named after the famous King Canute because it is always found at the very edge of the sea, just like in the story of the king and the tide. 

King Canute (or Cnut) was a famous Viking warrior and ruled in England from AD1016 to AD1035. According to Henry of Huntingdon, who wrote ‘Historia Anglorum’, a 12^th century account of England from its beginnings until 1154, King Canute wanted to demonstrate the danger of vanity to his sycophantic courtiers. So he set his throne by the sea and declared that he was going to order the tide to stay out so as not to get his robes and feet wet. 

Obviously, the tide continued to come in, so the king leapt up and declared: “Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless and there is no king worthy of the name, save Him by whose will heaven and earth and sea obey eternal laws.” He then hung his crown on a crucifix, never to wear it again. The message was that there was no one more powerful than god, not even a king.

Henry of Huntington’s account, the first version of which was written less than 100 years after Canute’s death, was intended to demonstrate that as well as being a great warrior, the king was also intelligent and humble. He won the affection of his English subjects, and had a reputation for reconciling the warring English and Danes.

Today, however, when someone is described as behaving like King Canute, it is an insult. The insinuation is that they are behaving arrogantly in trying to stop something happening that is inevitable. The fact that Canute was supposedly doing the exact opposite has been lost in the mists of time. 

The legend has cropped up in a few high profile news stories in recent years, possibly the most famous occurring in 2011 when footballer Ryan Giggs was seeking injunctions against newspapers wanting to print details of an extra-marital affair. Media lawyer Mark Stephens declared he was ‘trying to stop the unstoppable tide of information as it flows through the internet. He has become the King Canute of football.’

It’s a shame the original message contained in the tale, true or otherwise, has been lost, as it is the version of the story that I for one much prefer. 

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 6th October and the Gazette & Herald on 4th October 2020

It’s Halloween week, and celebrations are going to have to be rather different than normal with the government’s new ‘three-tier’ alert system in place to slow down the second wave of coronavirus infections. There will be no children going from door to door in their ghoulish fancy dress asking for treats, nor hoards of young adults in monstrous make-up crowding into the pubs and clubs for a night of partying, which has been customary in recent years.

There are various names for Halloween, such as Hallowe’en, All Hallows’ Eve, Hallows’ Evening, Allhalloween and All Saints’ Eve and, as my dad mentions in his column from 1^st November 1980, it is a Western Christian tradition that marks the night before ‘Hallowmas’ or All Saints’ Day. Following All Saints’ Day comes All Souls’ Day on 2^ndNovember, and the three days together were known as Allhallowtide. This was a time for honouring saints and martyrs and also for praying for those who’d recently died whose souls had not yet reached heaven. Relatives of the dead would don masks to disguise themselves from any lost souls en route to the above, for if they saw their loved ones, they might not want to leave. 

My own children could barely contain their excitement as Halloween approached, spending days planning what they would wear, and weighing up how big a receptacle was needed to carry the booty. It’s such a shame that children this year will lose out on the tradition of trick or treating, which for mine was one of the most thrilling of annual celebrations. Having said that, there are plenty of places online offering alternatives for making the weekend special, if somewhat different, for the young ones. 

With three boys, I spent many years treading the trick or treat path around my neighbourhood, and from the time that I began to take my oldest out (2000), until the last year my youngest went out (2014) I noticed how 31^st October grew bigger and more extravagant with each passing year. When I first started, my front porch was one of the most highly decorated on my estate, adorned as it was with white sheets, black plastic creepy crawlies and fake spider web. I also replaced the porch light with a red bulb to enhance the creepy atmosphere, and a CD played spooky music in the background. No expense or effort was spared there!

But as the years went on, my small porch was soon overshadowed by far more elaborate and sophisticated creations. It would take me a couple of hours to drag my stuff out of the attic and assemble it. But it became obvious that some neighbours spent days or even weeks preparing full-on Halloween showcases. In fact, my estate became quite well known locally for the amount of effort that went into it, and was the ‘go-to’ destination for many from beyond our immediate surroundings. 

I knew we had hit the trick-or-treat ‘big time’ when, one year, we ran out of sweets half way through the night. I had bought the amount that had been sufficient in previous years, but I wasn’t prepared for the surge in popularity and so raced around the house scouring cupboards and drawers for any long-ignored confectionery lying about (such as unwanted strawberry and coconut chocolates left at the bottoms of sweet tins). 

When this feeble emergency supply was also exhausted, then it was a race to blow out the pumpkin candle, turn all the lights off and shut the curtains to make it look like we were not in before the next trick or treater turned up. There’s nothing worse than having to look into the face of an expectant child on Halloween and have to tell them you’ve run out of sweets. 

Some of my neighbours really went to town, including a close friend who, after a few hard years of treading the Halloween beat with her four youngsters, decided instead to transform her garage into a full-blown witches’ grotto. She’d have tricks and scares a plenty hidden on the drive and among the decorations, and she awarded herself virtual points for the loudest screams she could elicit from the nervous youngsters who dared approach.

Thankfully, she also had some mulled wine on the go for the adults, so usually, while the kids gorged themselves on confectionary, we’d end up in her garage to enjoy a very happy Halloween. 

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 30th October and the Gazette & Herald on 28th October 2020

There is something mesmerising about a large bird of prey in flight. It’s not uncommon to see once-endangered red kites soaring on the thermals as we go about our daily business, and yet, if I see them while driving from A to B, I can’t help but keep glancing up in awe at their grace and power. It’s almost as if they are visiting from some distant exotic land and don’t really belong here.

I have the same reaction when I come across buzzards and even owls – they halt me in my tracks. So I can just imagine the hullabaloo resonating around my home village of Ampleforth when a pair of ospreys were spotted hunting in the local ponds, as my dad describes in his column from 25^th October 1980: ‘The most exciting event in Ryedale’s natural history calendar must surely have been the recent visit of a pair of ospreys.’

They had been seen fishing in the lakes near Ampleforth, while in Coxwold an angry mob of rooks had harassed a visiting osprey that they saw as a threat. Dad himself spotted one above Byland Abbey, and my brother reported seeing a pair half way between Ampleforth lakes and Coxwold.

Ospreys are big birds, about half a metre long, with a wingspan of up to 1.5 metres. They have a dark brown upper body and white underside, with the larger female sometimes dappled with brown speckles. They have a hooked black beak and a white head with a brown ‘Zorro’ slash across the eyes.

The local sighting was such a newsworthy event because the once common osprey had been driven to the brink of extinction in the Victorian era by over-zealous collectors of eggs and bird skins. In fact, they were completely extinct in England by 1840, and in Scotland by 1916.

After 40 years, a breeding pair was spotted making a nest near Loch Garten in the Cairngorms in 1956, and following that, breeding pairs have been spotted there every year since 1959. Numbers slowly began to rebuild, and by 1976 there were 14 known pairs and this had increased to 71 by 1991 and to 158 by 2001. Although they were reintroduced to England in 1996, it wasn’t until 2001 that the first successful breeding pair was reported here. Now, there are believed to be around 300 pairs across the UK, although they are still a protected species.

The migratory birds are resident in the UK between March and October before heading south to West Africa for the winter. They can fly up to 430km in one day, stopping near large bodies of water en route to rest and refuel. And that is why they were spotted in and around Ampleforth in 1980, as they were taking a wee break before continuing on their journey to warmer climes. But how special that must have been to see them, knowing that they were so rare, likely coming from the very few that had so recently re-established themselves in Scotland.

Ospreys are one of the few birds that only eat one type of food – fish – which is why they make their homes next to bodies of water. They are very impressive when hunting, and can soar up to 70 metres high while hunting, their laser-accurate eyesight enabling them to spot their prey so far below. They then dive vertically at incredible speeds until pulling up at the last second to extend their talons ready to grasp the unsuspecting fish swimming just below the surface. They plunge up to metre into the water to grab the fish which is then whisked away to the nest or a nearby tree to be eaten.

Ospreys are monogamous, and return to the same nesting site year after year. New nests are often built in the very tops of trees, and are up to 150cm wide and 60cm deep. Each year they return, the birds give their home a bit of a refurb, adding more branches, leaves and moss, so that the nests can extend up to two metres in width.

I don’t know if there any nesting ospreys in North Yorkshire today, but if you visit the RSPB website, it gives a comprehensive list of nature reserves and bird sanctuaries where you can see them. Obviously now might be a bit late in the year, but perhaps put it on your to-do list for 2021.

Read more at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

ENDS

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 23rd October and the Gazette & Herald on 21st October 2020