Another country

'Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner', that I love the country so.....17 years in North London is surely enough for anyone? So when I had the chance I headed for the hills.....well, the N Downs at any rate.

I studied 'Rural Environment Studies' (RES - cruelly twisted by other students to Real Easy Studies!)....at Wye College (London University). I was luck enough to be taught by some giants in the field - Alan Rogers, and especially Prof Gerald Wibberley: I vividly remember his account of a childhood in Wales, and to illustrate rural poverty he recounted waking up to frost on the inside of the cottage window and all over his bed covers!

From Wye, my next rural detour was a short one to Hever - also in the Kent countryside; there I harvested, drove tractors, milked cows and generally did a load of very enjoyable but hard & practical work! Five years followed in Devon....as a 'Rural Officer' - helping villagers to maintain or improve local services: shops, schools, transport etc. Thence 8 years as England's first Rural Development Programme Officer in the wonderful wilds of Northumberland; spending time at Bellingham (pronounced bellinjum) in the Scottish borders. And so to Winchcombe at the edge of ye Cotteswoldes.........and 16 years & counting (teaching at the University of Gloucestershire).....a career detour.