VICAR As the sea shifts from calm to tempest and the tides dictate the rhythm of life, our thoughts turn to those who venture into the deep. Our fishermen are the heirs to an ancient and perilous tradition, reading the signs of the water and trusting in their skill and courage to harvest its bounty. Their work connects our coastal communities to the timeless power … Continue reading A Prayer for Fishermen
BY ALLISON LEE Alison O’Neill comes from a family of hill farmers, so farming is deeply rooted in her heritage. She describes her family as “Sedbergh folk who started farming in Garsdale, in the Yorkshire Dales.” Alison recalls her father’s sale of the family farm in the late ’70s following his heart attack. She found the experience very distressing, especially since he was the final … Continue reading Daughter of the Dales
BY SEAN WALSH “I am satisfied the relevant processes were followed. The men are ascending and descending at the same time.”— Keir Starmer The English language is pretty useful when it comes to describing things, but it can only do so much. Some things are beyond its scope: the malignant, ordinary-yet-strange quality of the Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, Keir Starmer, for … Continue reading Starmer’s Process State Is an Escher Universe
BY NICHOLAS ENGERT There was a time when, in public, everyone would be adorned with a hat. It was unthinkable to be seen without a hat. Neither men nor women would venture out without the most defining of all accessories. The hat is not only practical, in that it assists in keeping one warm and dry, but more importantly, perhaps it confers the status of … Continue reading The Fedora
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN He is seventy-seven, and he has never missed a Sunday. Let that land. He locks the church at 5:45, unlocks it at 6:00, and in the fifteen minutes between, fifteen minutes of silence, of solitude, of the only intimacy he has ever truly wanted, he polishes the brass as though God keeps score in microns. His name is Geoffrey Thistlethwaite, which he … Continue reading The Sacristan
BY PAUL T HORGAN Of course, Sir Keir could see a revival in the opinion polls. British armed forces could reveal a Wunderwaffe that, when used by Ukrainians, causes the Russian hordes to retreat from Ukraine like the Blue Meanies did from Pepperland when confronted by The Beatles, while, when used by the USA, permanently secures safe passage in the international waters of the Straits of Hormuz. … Continue reading Kicking the Can
BY ALEX STORY Truth is the first casualty of war. Opinions on a conflict depend deeply on the prevailing culture, erasing nuance in the process. The less of it there is, the easier it is to convince yourself of your righteousness and your opponents’ wickedness. For instance, the current Iranian question divides the world into three main groups: The first staunchly believes that the Israeli … Continue reading War, Truth & Revelation
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust this Sunday finds you in good heart, perhaps with the last of the morning mist burning off the fields and a pot of something strong brewing in the kitchen. There is a particular blessing to a late spring Sunday, isn’t there? The hedgerows are frothing with cow parsley, the swallows have returned to the barn, and the … Continue reading A Prayer for Noticing
BY DEREK TURNER ‘Treasures on Earth – Buried Wealth in Landscape and Legend‘ Jeremy Harte, London: Reaktion, 2026, 292pps., £15 In his Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton offers some sensible advice as one of his ‘Remedies against discontents’ – “Seek that which may be found.” Jeremy Harte’s subtle and finely written new book examines the countless Britons who have taken exactly the opposite approach. Harte … Continue reading Treasure Island
BY CALUM CAMPBELL Few creatures embody the untamed spirit of Scotland’s ancient woodland quite like the wildcat. Often referred to as the Highland Tiger, Felis silvestris is now recognised as Scotland’s most threatened mammal, with perhaps only a few hundred individuals clinging to survival in the remote glens. The fight to save this elusive predator from extinction has galvanised conservationists, culminating in a landmark reintroduction project led … Continue reading Tigers, Lek, Precarity
BY JONNY GLOVER What I enjoy most about having friends from home come visit us in South Africa is that it gives us a nice excuse to explore other parts of the country which we may not otherwise be motivated to do. This time, my best friend and all around good time, Liz, came to stay and we planned our first safari trip ever to … Continue reading Kruger
CSM EDITORIAL There is a peculiar madness sweeping through Britain’s polling stations. While the country frets over the usual inadequacies of Labour and the Conservatives, a far more insidious force has crept up on the inside. The Green Party, once a harmless receptacle for earnest students and angry pensioners, is now within striking distance of power. And its programme is not merely eccentric. It is … Continue reading The Loony Green Menace
BY BERT BURNETT Let’s face it: this was never about finding a lost habitat or restoring a balanced ecosystem. It was never about bringing back the wildcats or the sea eagles for their own sake. No – somewhere along the line, genuine conservation got hijacked. What we have now is a carefully manufactured machine designed to make the public feel guilty, pass the blame onto … Continue reading The Great Rewilding Swindle
BY SEAN WALSH Why the Pope and the commentators are wrong on Iran There are good reasons for believing that the relativists are doing the devil’s work, regardless of whether or not they know this. Relativism claims either that (a) what is true is contingent, and changes with culture, geography and calendar date 1; or (b) that truth is irretrievably hidden from us and that our relationship … Continue reading Papal Fallibility
BY PAUL T HORGAN Anything connected with Peter Mandelson seems to inevitably send shockwaves around Westminster and beyond. This is what Mandelson does. As Labour spin-doctor in the 1990s, his job was to disrupt the media landscape and reshape it to an approximation of his design. He did this by commoditising news. After Black Wednesday in 1992, simply everyone in the media seems to have … Continue reading The Mandelson Question
BY ALLISON LEE Colne Valley Museum – a Grade II listed building – is housed in four cottages built in the 1840s by the Pearsons, a family of independent cloth manufacturers whose relatives still live in Golcar today. These weavers’ cottages, named ‘Spring Rock’ by James and Sally Pearson, were built into the steep hillside, with the traditional entrance for the lower rooms (like our modern … Continue reading Colne Valley Museum
BY ROGER WATSON There was a time, not so long ago, when crossing the Humber felt like an occasion. You approached the Humber Bridge with a certain ceremony, slowed your pace, fumbled for coins (or later, a card), and exchanged a nod, sometimes a word, with the attendant in the booth. It was not merely a crossing; it was a small, ritualised pause between the … Continue reading A Toll Tale
BY ED ANDERSON “We are facing a crisis.” The words of Victor Manuel Martín López, head of Eurocaja Rural, were blunt on Tuesday at El Español’s ‘Wake Up Spain’ on Spain’s economic future and uncertainty. It was certainly a different note being struck by Julián Conthe (Director General of Commercial and Economic Security in Spain) last week at the Fundación Alternativas event ‘La entrada en … Continue reading Disaster or Opportunity? Spanish Farming´s New Reality
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a particular quality to a Saturday morning in the Surrey villages. It is not peace, exactly. It is the absence of the City. The silence left behind after the 23.42 from Waterloo has taken its last wretched soul back from the big smoke. For the man in question – a commuter, a husband, a prisoner of the screens – that … Continue reading The Flymo
Dear Sirs, I write to offer my warmest congratulations on Alexia James’s splendidly clear-eyed article, “Bison in Blean? A £1.45M Vanity Project in the Woods”. At last, someone has had the courage to say what every sensible countryman has been muttering into his pint: that a fenced wood full of foreign megafauna proves nothing except that a little money and less logic makes for a … Continue reading Blean’s Dodgy Bison Fences
