CSM EDITORIAL A quick scan of Britain’s countryside using Google Earth reveals these rural twilight zones. Where subsisting folk live in caravans or dilapidated homes literally in the middle of nowhere. Down unpassable lanes or hidden off main roads where even the postman daren’t venture past a battered postal collection box barely attached to some post or tree. You may pass these locations as a … Continue reading A Shout Out For Britain’s Rural Poor
BY BEN EAGLE For the Oxford Farming Conference’s annual debate this year family farming was put under the spotlight. The motion suggested that the biggest threat to the family farm is the family farm itself and, perhaps surprisingly, attendees voted in favour of the motion by 182 to 157. Had the debate been held down the road at the Oxford Real Farming Conference I suspect … Continue reading What Future for Britain’s Family Farms?
BY CHARLES EVANS This peculiar, circular house, erected by two artistic spinsters and filled out with their curious handicrafts, was built about 1800. The Misses Jane and Mary Parminter, of good Devon middle class stock, travelled abroad for a decade sight-seeing, then decided to continue their association at Exmouth in a house which they designed to incorporate certain features of the Byzantine Church of San … Continue reading A La Ronde
VICAR At “Spirit of the Countryside” five years ago, the then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams gave a sermon to the Countryside. Nearly 1500 people gathered at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire on Pentecost Sunday for a service at which Archbishop Rowan preached, followed by a picnic lunch and live music. Throughout the service, symbols of the countryside were brought to the altar to thank God for … Continue reading Spirit of the Countryside
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN At public school, the powers that be insisted that your bed in the dormitory was located a few feet away from your enemy’s. Over a fourteen-week term, this was meant to be character-building. So, for the first couple of years, I found myself next to my enemy, who we shall call O’Flaherty. O’Flaherty and I really disliked each other, so much so … Continue reading Labour for the Taking
BY ALEXIA JAMES You’ve heard of A.C Grayling, right? Plato, Socrates, Descartes, Grayling? Ring any bells? Well done you at the back of the class! A.C Grayling is the Peckham-dwelling University of Sussex graduate with 30 books under his belt on philosophy, biography, the history of ideas, human rights and ethics. For several years, Anthony Clifford Grayling was a columnist for The Guardian (yup, his kids go to … Continue reading Ailing from Grayling?
BY MARK TOWNLEY The NHS can never be a bottomless pit and in recent years it has been struggling more than in most years as the country recognises that there is a limit to free healthcare and the extraordinary waste that the NHS entails. Paying too much for nurses, badly negotiated procurement and too many management/admin staff and hangers-on – all these and other NHS ills … Continue reading Cumberland Madness: Disrespecting Veterans
Beer Braised Rabbit Ingredients: 3 tb Oil 2 fryer rabbits cut into pieces 1/2 heaping cup season flour Salt Freshly ground black pepper 1/2 lb Ground pork sausage 2 cup Thinly sliced onions 1 1/2 lb White mushrooms, thinly sliced 2 tb Chopped garlic 1 tb Chopped fresh thyme 2 Bay leaves 2 cup of a Amber beer 4 cups chicken or rabbit stock 2 … Continue reading Beer Braised Rabbit
BY JIM BROWNE I am a church-goer. My wife and I appear weekly at our local Anglican church every Sunday even when it snows. We tend to sit somewhere near the back, especially now as we have a Vicar who likes to get political and I do tend to chunter when he talks nonsense. Our church was built in the Sixteenth Century and the congregation … Continue reading Countryside Churches Gone by 2025
INTERVIEWEE: ALLAN WARREN Allan Warren is a British portrait photographer based in Covent Garden, primarily known for his images of high society including stars of the screen, celebrities and royalty. Allan also happens to be a great character, raconteur and bon vivant. Allan has photographed Mae West, Salvador Dali, Prince Charles, Roger Moore, Joan Collins and many others. Here, in a transcript of their interview, his friend … Continue reading Star Shooter & Character: Allan Warren
BY AMANDA CUMMINS When I was a little girl in Trinidad, I ran away from home. Teddy clutched in my arms, and emergency supplies (I can’ t remember what they were, but they were important) in my school satchel, I opened the garden gate which was usually locked (more to deter incursions than for containing a 5-year-old). I remember it vividly. Standing on the road … Continue reading Trinidad Runaway
BY ANASTASIA CHOO Donald Trump’s win on 8th November, based on a campaign of fiery and blistering rhetoric often singling out China, sent shock waves around the globe. Mainstream media observed closely as world leaders raced to make that all-important phone call to congratulate the unpredictable political virgin. Some calls were fulsome and some tentatively made but none caused as much furore as the phone … Continue reading One China or Two?
Mince Pie Ingredients (for 16 pies) 225g cold butter, diced 250g plain flour 100g caster sugar 280g mincemeat 1 small egg Icing sugar, to dust How to make Mince Pies To make the pastry, rub the cold, diced butter into the plain flour, then mix in the caster sugar and add a pinch of salt. Combine the pastry into a ball – don’t add liquid – … Continue reading Simple Mince Pie Recipe
BY JIM BROWNE Not that they would ever wish to be seen to be interfering in our lives, the Government has seen fit in the past to draw up a Countryside Code which covers the basics of closing gates and not dropping litter. Respect – Protect – Enjoy is their catchy slogan. No doubt thought out at our expense across several weeks of meetings at … Continue reading The CSM Countryside Code
Mulled Wine Ingredients: 10 cloves Zest and juice of 2 oranges 100-150g caster sugar depending on desired sweetness 25g dried cranberries 100g whole blanched almonds 700ml red wine 500ml ruby port 300ml vodka 10 cardamom pods 2 small cinnamon sticks How to Make Mulled Wine: Pre-heat the oven to 200°c / gas mark 6 and boil up your kettle. Place the blanched almonds into a … Continue reading Mulled Wine Recipe
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN I have a confession to make. Even though I joyously agreed to be one of the founder writers of Country Squire Magazine, I’ve spent most of my life as something of a plastic exurbanite in the Surrey villages stockbroker belt, where the hedges are perfectly trimmed, Barbours are mere fashion accessories, tractors get polished to a patina and paddocks are mowed in aesthetically-pleasing stripes. … Continue reading Confession of a Plastic Exurbanite
BY SAM WHITE A recent Giles Fraser article in the Guardian, Assimilation Threatens the Existence of Other Cultures, asserts that wherever you might choose to live, you should feel no obligation to assimilate into the wider culture. He states: I admire the resilience of a community that seeks to maintain its distinctiveness and recognises, quite rightly, that assimilation into the broader culture would mean the … Continue reading Giles Fraser’s Low Expectations
BY PHILIP DANTÈS I have been distracted of late: hours pass; conversations drift like smoke from denuded cigarettes; I have not been myself. True, my mind is prone to wander. Employers despair at my lack of concentration, lovers at my lack of constancy. I do not mean to disappoint, but I often do. That is the curious thing. Instead of roaming where they please, my … Continue reading Jay Gatsby
INTERVIEWEE: ATMA SINGH Q: What role did you have when you worked in City Hall in London? Atma: I was lead Policy Adviser to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on Asian Affairs in the Mayor’s Office. In addition, I had responsibility for faith matters. Q: Why were you recruited? Atma: I had predicted the rise of Asian superpowers in China and India when all … Continue reading Livingstone Staff Celebrated 9/11
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN To the annoyance of my minders, I stand amongst a crowd of passengers in the bus park next to Nkrumah Circle, in the smoke-filled heart of Ghana’s capital city, Accra. With vehicles buzzing overhead on a fly-over and stationary ones hooting horns in a jam on the road below, it is not easy to hear or be heard. A huge man in … Continue reading Ghana’s Golden Generation
