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England awakens to Summer

© Stuart Buchanan MacWatt

England’s countryside reopens at last.
England is awakening to the dappled sunlight of warmer days after a catastrophic winter and blighted spring. The hoof and mouth scourge is not yet beaten, thanks to official refusal to vaccinate animals. But the worst is over and England’s countryside is now opening up for visitors. The stately homes and gardens, rural inns, moorland wildernesses, bridleways, woodland walks, scenic coastal footpaths are there for us to enjoy once again.

The damage caused by the floods and hoof & mouth epidemic to the tightly interwoven rural economy of England’s countryside with its ancient rural communities that live from farming and rural tourism will be difficult to erase. Prince Charles’s enlightened vision of rural communities as ‘custodians and guardians of the countryside’ rather than as part of a global supermarket food processing chain will now need to be urgently addressed if William Blake’s “England’s green and pleasant land” is to survive for travelwriters like me to enthuse about. Help may be at hand. A new government Ministry for Rural Affairs is likely to emerge from the ashes of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food holocaust of 2 million animals slaughtered to the dictates of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy. Whether it will have power to fend off the bureaucrats of Brussels with their ghastly millennium vision of countryside as a factory food processing plant dotted with designated ‘rural idyll’ theme parks for urban weekenders remains to be seen.

Gamefishing has been badly affected by the countryside quarantine affecting rivers. Salmon and trout rivers in areas of England, Wales and the Scottish borders that were infected are likely to be closed and remain so for the season, although some stretches have now been reopened. Cornish and Scottish Highland rivers are open as are 85% of lake fisheries and stillwater trout reservoirs. The British Environment Agency maintains an up-to-date list of open game and coarse fisheries. The season for the latter opens June 16 and will be affected in some areas.

The foxhunting season which normally opens in August will certainly not begin before October this year. There is a countrywide ban on deer stalking, though I understand that restrictions may soon be eased where deer numbers are higher than they should be because fewer than usual have been culled. The British National Gamekeepers’ Organisation expects the “Glorious Twelfth” , (the traditional August date for the opening of the grouse season) to be delayed in parts of the Pennines, Scottish borders and Co. Durham. The September start of the partridge and duck shooting season may also be delayed. Pheasant shoots are restocking over the summer for an expected

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