DIARY SIMON COURTAULD
Nicholas Ridley had too much going against him to be left in charge of the environment. Apart from the Water Act and the poll tax which, however miscon- ceived they may have been, he presented with commendable clarity and resolution, he came to be regarded as what we used to call at school a 'loather', someone who is so universally disliked that he is 'sent to Coventry'. This in effect is what happened to Mr Ridley in the environmental world — in the House of Lords he was described as 'the most disliked and mistrusted mem- ber of the Cabinet' — though among his colleagues he is popular. By contrast with almost everyone else, I found something rather likeable in the way so much was dismissed by him as unscientific rubbish, whether it was evidence of pollution of the North Sea or the policies of the Green Party. While not actually opposing the Green philosophy, he advised farmers to take advantage of what he endearingly referred to as 'the organic rip-off. His unpopularity over planning decisions reached its peak last month when he said he was 'minded' to approve the building of a new town at Raley Wood, on the Berkshire-Hampshire border. Mr Patten may have other ideas, but I wonder whether Mr Ridley was merely being mis- chievous, intimating that he was tempted to let the development go ahead just to annoy his many detractors. One subject which I rather regret that Mr Ridley did not address was the suffering of seals. He might have said that while the survival of the seal around our coasts is of paramount importance, the balance of marine life has been upset over the past 20 years by over-population, in particular on the part of the grey seal which, unlike the common seal, has not been affected by the virus. The number of grey seals has tripled to almost 100,000 in 30 years, and the director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust, Rear- Admiral John Mackenzie, has engagingly suggested that if killing is unacceptable they should be fed a contraceptive pill. As a fisherman Mr Ridley might have pointed out that last year seals would have con- sumed about 200,000 tonnes of fish, includ- ing 4,000 tonnes of salmon, or four times the total salmon catch, by net and rod, in Scotland. About 25 per cent of salmon caught, according to my highly placed source at the Ministry of Agriculture, also have seal marks on them. But no one is allowed to say anything against seals; even Mr Ridley kept quiet, though I bet he was minded to say something.
The Government's lack of interest in the countryside is nowhere better illus- trated than at the Game Fair, that hugely popular gathering which was held on the Duke of Wellington's estate at Stratfield Saye last weekend. Neither of the quangos — Nature Conservancy Council or Coun- tryside Commission — was represented, the more extraordinary at a time when it is becoming more widely accepted that coun- try sports are in the country interest. A visit to the Game Fair by a minister might at least have given some hope that the Government would defend shooting against the threat of EEC restrictions; but no one came. Three years ago, when I visited Le Game Fair Francais outside Bordeaux, it was formally opened by the environment minister who spoke of field sports as part of the heritage, and endorsed the slogan, `la chasse c'est naturel'. This is the stuff we should be hearing from our two new ministers, of Environment and Agriculture. (To his credit, John Gummer did turn up at the Game Fair at Chatsworth in 1987 when he was number two at Agriculture.) Let them make a note that next year's Game Fair will be on 2-4 August at Margam Park, Glamorgan, so enabling Peter Walker to go along as well as take the credit for Wales.
On holiday the other week with my family in Corsica, I cannot claim to have given much thought to the significance of the bicentenary of the French Revolution.
But the comment of M. Jean-Paul Goude, who masterminded the cosmopolitan para- de in Paris on Bastille Day, that he was `against the purity of races', did prompt one or two reflections on the celebrations we attended in the town of Porto Vecchio on the south-east coast. Until 20 years before the Revolution, Corsica, the birth- place of Napoleon, had been ruled from Genoa as part of the kingdom of Sardinia; most Corsicans at the time would probably have been happier to wait a few years and join the Risorgimento, having thrown off the Austrian yoke. As a Huguenot whose family was driven from France 300 years ago by Louis XIV, I hope that my support for the cause which gave us liberty, equal- ity, fraternity is not in doubt. Yet there were the staff of a Vietnamese restaurant, watching the fireworks over the port, who might have pondered the fact that it was the legacy of the Revolution which was probably responsible for their being in Porto Vecchio rather than Ho Chi Minh City. But such thoughts did not interfere with a good multi-racial party, and the voice of the black American Jessye Nor- man singing 'La Marseillaise' carried stir- ringly across the bay.
The only good thing to be said for the ridiculous weather of recent weeks is that the grass does not need cutting. However, a yellow vetch has been growing vigorously out of the parched lawn, and now the drought is causing leaves and unripe fruit to fall from the trees. It was the heat which contributed to my father's death two weeks ago, and when I went to the hospital to be handed the certificate of cause of death, the woman there commented on the num- ber of people who had succumbed to the weather. Having never had to deal with `funeral directors' before, I was, to say the least, taken aback when my telephone call to inquire about the form of service at a crematorium was met only with the reply, `The crematorium fee is £86; have you got a booking?' A call to another firm with the more straightforward description of `undertakers' was answered much more helpfully and sympathetically. Never hav- ing enjoyed the heat, my father suffered cruelly this summer from the lack of shade in his garden after all the trees were lost in the storm of 1987. For the lesson at his funeral it seemed appropriate to read the passage in Revelation about those who are before the throne of God, where 'they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat', which I hope he would have appreci- ated.
Simon Courtauld is Editor of Country Times and Landscape
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