One of the reassuring things about growing up in England in the 50s and 60s was to hear ’On your farm’ broadcast every Sunday morning from some farmer’s kitchen. The farms chosen all seemed to be fairly well to do. I don’t recall hearing too many hard luck stories. They were the days of growth through shrewd acquisition (getting your son to marry a farmer’s daughter might be a god strategy), selective plant and animal breeding, developments in fertilizers and pesticides and specialization. The main comfort of the programme was the homely fried breakfast shared with the presenter. The full works - bacon, sausage, black pudding, eggs (from the farm of course), home made bread and marmalade. The 'farmer’s wife' even got to speak sometimes about selling eggs or making jam or the Women’s Institute. If there was anything controversial then I don’t remember it. There were no farmers growing exotic vegetables in polytunnels for upmarket restaurants and no farmers with home counties accents on the Welsh borders. If the programme was from a farm in the Dales, the farmer had a Dales accent and was called Metcalfe or Foster. If you were in Lancashire then the farmer would speak like George Formby. In the Lake District, it was always raining and Beatrix Potter had lived over the hill. All the farmers sons worked on the farm and everything was rosy. 

I knew that the programme showed a sanitised version of farming and farmers. If they had gone round my Uncle’s farm, which they never did,  then they would have been subjected to a thoroughgoing analysis of rural philosophy, politics and economics littered with sufficient rude words and sounds to keep the vicar from visiting. My Uncle wore a wide brimmed hat (that was buried with him when he died) and referred to anyone who attended school after 14 years of age as ‘Professor’. He was not short of opinions and smelled of pigs and tractors all year round and additionally of soil, cabbages, peas, potatoes or straw according to season. It would have made excellent radio - for a late night adult audience.

In retrospect, those were the years when the landscape changed out of all recognition. Where I was born the mixed farm became a rarity and farmers made a better living specializing in growing wheat at the cost of flattening hedges and filling in ditches and draining wet fields. There was a chemical answer to nutrition, pests and weeds (insects and wildflowers?) 

Things have changed and ‘On your farm’ gets out and about into the fields and woodlands a bit more and discussion  of the fried breakfast no longer takes up the time. In fact several years ago I remember hearing the Duke of Westminster interviewed for the programme in his office on his Chester estate. The presenter described the scene, the small office and the cup of black coffee in front of the Duke. The interviewer enquired hopefully if the Duke was maybe going to have breakfast later. 'This is my breakfast.’ said the Duke to the deflated journalist.

Whatever changes the programme has undergone, the format of getting real people to explain their working lives in their own voices has not changed. As I listened to this weeks programme, I was cheered to hear Martin Colledge (the man who runs Forests in NW England for the Forestry Commission) explaining how grazing of felled areas in Whinlatter Forest is resulting in a return of native wildflowers. The twist in this weeks particular story is that the farmer who owns the cattle does not actually have a farm as such - he rents out his stock to graze sensitive areas. An excellent programme and if you weren’t awake at 6.30am on Sunday, then listen now! 

Drilling holes into Bowland shale in search of gas near Blackpool was not to blame for a minor earthquake recorded in Dunsop Bridge early this morning. Everything looks OK on this photo of Burholme bridge, doesn't it?

Our old chum William Bowland, 16th Lord of Bowland, put on a sterling show when he delivered a public lecture at Browsholme Hall on Tuesday evening. His erudite lecture on the history of the Lordship of Bowland took place on the occasion of the formal swearing in of Clitheroe land agent Michael Parkinson as Chief Steward of the Forest of Bowland, the first such steward since the 1922. Proceeds from the evening went to the Slaidburn Archive to support its work recording and preserving Hodder Valley history.

To their evident surprise, William told rapt listeners: “The future matters more than the past. My lordship may date back a thousand years but today, my job as Lord of Bowland is to provide a marketing opportunity. Let’s celebrate the Lordship of Bowland as a part of our heritage just as we might celebrate an historic landscape or a beautiful building. Let’s use it to help protect, preserve and promote Bowland in all its uniqueness. The 16th Lord of Bowland should be regarded as just another feature of our wonderful Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, no more, no less”.

Is this really what we expect from an overlord? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned pomp and ceremony? Once upon a time, you could always depend on a feudal grandee to wear a silly hat. Alas, it seems, no more ...

I took Margaret Panikkar (local historian, renowned cheese making expert etc etc) along last night and we were 'shushed' twice for whispering by a member of the audience who was hanging on every word. I expected withering questions from the audience but William dealt with them all deftly. One lady asked if Sir Walter Urswick (pronounced Werswick) might have anything to do with the village of Worswick. 'Almost certainly' was the reply to that! There was a pause and then another lady asked in serious tones 'What about my rights?'. At last something controversial! Unfortunately this was not some latter day Flora Poste and if there was 'something nasty in the woodshed' we still don't know what it is. The lady was actually enquiring about mineral rights in Grindleton and after a quick check with Michael, William confirmed that they were probably held by the Assheton family. A thoroughly entertaining evening.

What sounded like the crackle of small arms fire turned out to be the swift entrance of two blue bridesmaids in stiletto heels across the stone flagged floor of the Inn at Whitewell. Moments later a gloriously vulgar Cadillac, all fins and fenders, glided to a halt and disgorged the blushing bride. Dark suits and sparkling dresses converged - we were leaving as the party was beginning. 

Whilst this little scene unfolded yesterday afternoon, a mile away at New Laund Farm, archaeologists from UCLAN under the supervision of Dr Rick Peterson were dressed in hard hats, jeans and boots.  They are spending  4 weeks there meticulously scraping, washing, sieving and cataloging finds as they dig deeper into their chosen sites. Rick explained to us that limestone knolls above Whitewell are riddled with caves that would have been attractive shelters for early man. Rick says that the 'hunter gatherer' lifestyle of early man may have changed to that of farmer with the help of cave shelters in this transition phase. His aim was to excavate undisturbed sites and look for evidence of human habitation - human bones and/or artefacts. Yesterday he was delighted that they had found not only flints (that must have been carried there by man) but also a fragment of human bone. Yesterday was a sublimely warm, sunny day as 16 of us heard from Rick and his team about their choice of sites, their research techniques and finds.  Our host and farmer John Alpe, who asked the most questions of all, interleaved all this the talk of archaeology with explanations of farming, food and wildlife and his views on the rural economy and local government. At the outset he had planned to go to Gisburn market but he was still with us at the end having sent his Dad to sell the cattle!

In several thousand years time will there be any evidence of the event that took place at the Inn yesterday? The Cadillac, suits and dresses already have vanished so what might be left at some distant point in the future? Perhaps a hair grip that was lost and became wedged between the cobbles outside, perhaps a fragment of wine glass retrieved from the River Hodder or perhaps archaeologists will expose stone flags buried under leaf mould and rubble and surmise that surface abrasions could have been made by footwear fashionable at the time in the primitive refreshment shelter by the river.

Rick will publish a summary of their investigations in the autumn and we will post that elsewhere on the website.