Country Life 14-Dec-2022

Megan, who previously worked at COUNTRY LIFE, is a continuity and birth-centre midwife in a London NHS hospital and delivered her 100th baby on Christmas Day last year. She has a degree in Natural Sciences from Durham University and is now studying for a masters degree in Midwifery. Megan has also volunteered with Health & Hope, training midwives in remote Chin State, Myanmar, and is the daughter of Tim and Charlotte Jenkins of Esher, Surrey. Photographed on West Wittering Beach, West Sussex, by Mike Garrard…

CHRISTMAS is one way that we measure the passage of time. It’s a punctuation moment in the year and we find ourselves remembering that it’s the first Christmas in this house or that it was the last Christmas with her or him. Nostalgia plays a large part in our celebrations as adults: it is a set of rituals to return to, which anchor us somehow, especially if the memories are happy ones. This is expressed in the birth of Christ, who showed us what God is like, but also what it could be like to be human In my role as Rector of St James’s Church, Piccadilly, in central London, I watch the run-up to Christmas take a particular turn each year. At the heart of the West End, our parish is…

A DECISION to open a new coal mine in Cumbria has been described as an ‘incomprehensible act of self harm’. The comments, made by Sir David King, head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, have been echoed by scientists, campaigners and institutions both at home and abroad as fury mounts over the decision taken last week. Green MP Caroline Lucas called the decision a ‘climate crime against humanity’, as Cumbrian Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron simply described it as ‘daft’. Frank Bainimarama, the prime minister of Fiji, added: ‘Is this the future we fought for under the Glasgow pact?’ The outrage comes after the Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove signed off on the plans last Wednesday, which will see the first coal mine opened in the UK in 30 years. The…

Quiz of the week 1) In ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, what does St Nicholas hold in his teeth? 2) The writer and composer of Silent Night hailed from which European country? 3) Which three British mammals enter true hibernation in winter? 4) What’s the original Latin name of Oh Come, All Ye Faithful? 5) What are the last five words of A Christmas Carol? Word of the week Apolaustic (adjective) Devoted to enjoyment 100 years ago in December 23, 1922 IT is very pleasant to see the country relatives landing at the terminal stations, coming from distant parts, many of them carrying what we presume to be game or poultry in canvas bags and others with great bunches of red-berried holly, which this year has done its best to provide with plenty of colour. If one may judge from…

Letter of the week Clever boots YOUR article on John Lobb (‘If the shoes fit’, November 23) brings to mind my late grandfather, James Stuart Farrer. He was discharged from the army in 1917 with the rank of private, a full disability pension and a badly damaged leg that required a surgical boot. By the mid 1920s, he was sufficiently affluent to have his shoes handmade by Lobbs, which improved his mobility and made his disability less obvious. Some 50 years later, an eagle-eyed government official spotted that, despite his pension being paid, my grandfather had made no claim for any new surgical footwear. Someone was dispatched to check he was still alive and enquire why he had not presented himself for any footwear; after he explained, it was decided it would…

IN Felixstowe, Suffolk, our major container port, there’s a campaign under way that should help to protect farmers all over the country. Two years ago, Agromenes warned that the spread of African Swine Fever threatens the whole of the pig industry, counselling tougher measures on meat imports and a much more effective slaughter policy aimed at our growing wild-boar population. The Forestry Commission and Defra upped their game partly as a result. Every Continental country is battling against the disease, which is passed on by live animals and infected meat. Tourists often innocently import meat that has not been produced to the high EU standards, but, at Felixstowe, Defra’s Animal and Plant Health Agency and the UK Border Force are after the commercial businesses that evade food-standards controls to send uncertified…