Henry visits the Countryside Alliance

The Countryside Alliance is full of real country people – like Sir Barnie White-Spunner (who ran for cover from the Lead Ammunition Group). They didn’t seem to be in when we visited last week with the red London buses , black taxi cabs, and commuters in a traffic jam on the Kennington Road.  Maybe they’d…

The first 5000 signatures

Last year it took 28 days to reach 5,000 signatures on an e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. This year it has taken 6 days to get half way to the level where the government must respond. I wonder whether we could reach 10,000 signatures by Hen Harrier Day, or certainly by the Inglorious 12th?…

In your August copy of …(3)

You should buy The Field this month – you really should (and you should buy Birdwatch every month, of course). I found ‘Bransdale’s resurgence‘ an interesting read, partly because Henry and I had visited some of the places mentioned in this article on our travels. Bransdale is a moor in the North York Moors –…

It’s not published yet but…

I’ve been getting ‘phone calls and emails from friends, and from people I don’t know well, telling me that they have enjoyed reading Inglorious – conflict in the uplands, even though it isn’t officially published until Thursday – that’s 30 July. The earliest copy that I know to have been bought from a bookshop was…

In your August copy of…(2)

Whereas Birdwatch magazine has a ringtail Hen Harrier on its cover this month, The Field has a marvellous image of a Red Grouse on its cover. Don’t you just want to…errr…shoot it? As a graphic example of the crisis of confidence in the British grouse shooting industry, Max Hastings calls on readers of The Field…