Editorial October/November 2004

Paul Warburton

There is a gap in our community that will be impossible to fill. This was my immediate reaction to the tragic loss of our farming neighbour Paul Warburton from North Farm, Shillingford.

Paul was a larger than life character involved with all aspects of the farming industry and our local community. Others will be better placed to acknowledge his enthusiastic and various roles including a leading light in the Brightwell Conservative Association, Warborough Church, Scottish Reels, walking and countryside matters or just as a friend.

I have known Paul for years and as many will acknowledge from his farm walks and trailer rides, he was an undoubted leader in conservation and environmental matters together with communication of farming issues to the wider public. This was recognised only this year when he won a prestigious award for his conservation activities at North Farm.

I shall miss his forays onto our farm to check progress and the buzz of activity associated with his farming methods next door. Paul was a good countryman, a good citizen, a thinker, a doer and an enthusiast in all areas and this was reflected at his memorial service at St Laurence Church, Warborough, which hundreds attended.

Our deepest sympathies and offers of help can only partially alleviate the sorrow surrounding Hilary and their three daughters, Caroline, Alison and Kate, together with close relations and friends. Paul leaves a legacy for the countryside that will outlive us all.

David Greasby

The Big Apple

Our Bramley apple trees were old and overgrown when we moved to this house in the early 1980's, but every spring they're covered in blossom and produce more fruit than we can ever eat. Woodpeckers nest in the hollows, mistletoe flourishes, and squirrels, pursued by our cats, traverse the garden in their high branches. We thought last year's hot dry summer would result in a small crop, but instead the tallest tree produced enormous apples, many of which smashed to pieces as they fell on the hard-baked earth.

One whole one that I picked up weighed 580gms or 1lb 4.5ozs - just 4ozs short of the quantity needed to make Apple Crumble for 6! It seems that these trees continue to be productive to a very great age: the book "Great British Trees", published by The Tree Council, tells me that the original Bramley Apple is still growing in private grounds in Southwell, Nottinghamshire.

It was grown from a pip by Mary Ann Brailsford between 1809 and 1815. The pip is thought to have come from an apple tree in her garden and grew into a fine seedling which was planted out and bore its first fruit in 1837. Twenty years later a local nurseryman, Henry Merryweather, recognized the apple as an excellent variety and asked Mr Bramley, the then owner of the tree, for permission to take cuttings. Mr Bramley agreed but insisted that it should bear his name - hence Bramley's Seedling, when it really should have been Brailsford's Seedling!

In about 1900, the tree fell over but, as it remained rooted, it continued to grow and produce new roots where the trunk touched the ground. Nottingham University recently cloned the tree and a new specimen is now growing in the garden. The original tree, however, is still producing heavy crops of Bramley apples.

Lesley Dore

Conker Time - 70 Years Ago

The following is an account, as accurate as memory will allow, of conker time many years ago. Just south of our village War Memorial is a stretch of road leading up to the church yard gates, and on the south side of this roadway is a moss topped wall. Just over this wall, in what was once a paddock belonging to a nearby farm, there once grew a row of huge horse chestnut trees, which produced a fine crop of conkers every year.

During the afternoon lessons in the nearby school the children, when opportune, would glance out of the high windows, and if they saw that the wind was swaying the nearby tree branches, they knew jolly well that that same wind would also be blowing down a shower of conkers on to the roadway beneath the trees. With lessons ended, and once in the lobbies, coats would be snatched off pegs and the race would be on. Out through the school gates, straight across the road, no need to look right or left, to where the roadway under the trees would be carpeted with fallen conkers, some still in their green spiked seed cases. To the children these shiny brown objects were like nuggets of gold or gems from the Orient. In no time at all they would all have been gathered up. Then sticks and stones would be hurled up at the trees to knock down conkers still hanging there. It was somewhat dangerous being under the trees when these missiles returned to earth. At last, the boys with pockets bulging with conkers would make their way home. I can't remember how the girls carried theirs.

Now began the hard part, forcing a hole through each conker with a meat skewer. Many a hand was pricked in this operation. The conker was then threaded on to a piece of string or lace, and a knot at one end prevented it from sliding off. To play conkers one child held their conker dangling on the string or lace, while their opponent swung at it with his to knock it. The first conker to break belonged to the loser and the winner's score went up by one. That is before the "know-all" came along (there is usually one) who decided to change the method of scoring. He said that if his three-er broke his opponent's three-er, then his was not a four-er, but a six-er, by taking all his opponentís score. With higher numbers this caused arguments and disputes among the older children, and dismay among the younger ones. The only benefit that I could see in all this was that it might have been a help in elementary mathematics. Fist fights among the boys to settle quarrels were rare. They were much more likely to back off and throw stones at one another. There were plenty of loose stones lying around in those days. The one advantage of this was that the one thought to be losing had a good start, if he decided to make a run for it, which he usually did. At school the next morning these quarrels would have been forgotten. Well, almost! All this throwing up at the trees, and at each other, paid dividends on later cricket fields, when young men would throw the ball in from near the boundary line with commendable speed and accuracy. It wasn't long before mother became fed-up with all these hard, dull objects lying around the house, so she would gather them up and throw them out on to the garden. Then, of course, it was father's turn to complain, when young horse chestnut trees began appearing all over the place.

Instead of ending on such a light-hearted note - I'm going to end on a sad one - because today, of course, the trees have gone, the conkers have gone, the school has gone and the children have gone. Itís just not the same.

Ron Wood

A First for Brightwell-cum-Sotwell? - Little Egret

Walking through St Agatha's Churchyard on the evening of the 25 July I was approaching the stream which flows from the allotments to Brightwell Manor moat. To my surprise a snowy white bird, two thirds the size of a heron rose from the stream and flew through the trees towards the Manor moat. A moment of hesitation, but I concluded the only bird it could be was a Little Egret. I rushed home to get my binoculars and made my way back to the Manor garden. I walked carefully to the moat and along the bank. Sure enough, it was there doing the things that Little Egrets do, dashing around in the shallow water, catching small fish, which I saw it do several times. I have watched them many times in Devon and Cornwall and have seen one on Port Meadow, Oxford, and Otmoor. The following evening I went back to find it still in the same area of the moat. The following day it was observed flying near Mackney which was the last time it was seen.

The Little Egret has increased in numbers and range over the last few years mainly in the south west and along the south coast, but they are gradually moving north. In Oxfordshire in 1995 there were just two single reports, in 2000 there were four, but in June alone this year there were 12 reports. 2003 saw the Little Egret breed for the first time in Oxfordshire rearing four young and they have done the same again this year. They have bred for the first time in Bucks this year. As far as I am aware this was the first Brightwell-cum-Sotwell Little Egret.

Paul Chilton