CAN this rotten weather really go on much longer?

In my whole career I only associate being so cold and wet with when I was in the Yorkshire Dales all those years ago. It imbued the North Pennines with an indelible personality and perhaps this coloured my lasting impressions of the Dales as a bleak, clapped-out environment sadly in need of rescuing by cohorts of Sitka.

I once did a deal in Langstrothdale, at the head of Wharfedale, where the only tree cover was that afforded by the odd sycamore which was supposed to keep off the sun in what passed for summer up there. Amongst the property papers was an essay written in Victorian times which remembered when a squirrel – red, of course, not grey – could traverse the Langstrothdale valley from end to end without a paw touching the ground. All that remained of that natural forest even 200 years ago were the old, struggling, twisted and contorted oaks which survived in little vales and becks feeding into the babbling rivers forming and maintaining the Dales.

How did this happen? In a word, sheep, whose numbers were promoted, along with the wool, to make tweeds and heavy warm cloth that kept out the cold. There we are, full circle. But isn’t it now time to roll back the carpet (yes, there was a steady demand for rugs as well)? The North Pennines and the Dales are National Parks and through rights to roam have become a curious playground for urban-based lovers of the countryside, as it seems the English uplands have a lasting appeal to these people. 

There was no right to roam in those long-celebrated days of confrontation between the game-keepers of the rich, grouse-shooting sportsmen who actually owned the hills and valleys. Their conflict was well-enough recorded and enshrined in the folk memories of the mill workers from the textile mills of the industrialised northern towns and cities. But to me, more used to new notions of tree cover which have evolved into perhaps a less abrasive management style, I wonder if it might be just a new view of land use in the heathery moors we have inherited.

Personally, I am constantly amazed at the claims made of, say, the North Pennine landscape. Visitors gaze on the upland deserts that remain, saying, “Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it natural?” Quick answer – no, it isn’t. It’s in the final stages of degradation. Everything taken out of the land and nothing put back. The way in which claims are made for this environment is surprising. Peat, peat and more peat. A less rich habitat than upland moorland peat is difficult to imagine. Peat will save the world from climate change. Peat will defend upland moorland birds and somehow this uninteresting brown stuff is more important both economically and environmentally than any of the varied alternatives. Such as they are. And don’t forget the sheep – still grazing after all these years. 

Historically, land ownership is closer to the deep-rooted cause of this degradation.

Its cause is social politics, which persists. I read it in the papers to this day. Half of the UK, it seems, is owned by a mere one per cent of the population. This motley crew, holding titles dating back hundreds of years, includes not jut the Crown but Oxford and Cambridge universities and the Church of England. In the case of the North Pennines, the land is owned largely by traditional estates which may also control the mineral wealth down there below the peat layers. Some day, I suppose in song, my prince may come, but in the meantime, on the surface, nothing happens apart from the raising, beating and shooting of native red grouse. And long-distance walkers. Shoot grouse, I mean, not the walkers.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have always been a keen shooter and have been lucky to be a guest on driven grouse country on a few memorable days. Grouse shooting is the very highest form of sport – and, importantly, the birds themselves are raised in the wild. So managing both the wild stock and their surroundings is essential.

Then there are the walkers. How attitudes have changed over my career. My first student job for the Commish was in the lowlands. And a prominent notice fixed to the entrance gate, which was firmly padlocked, said ‘NO Trespassing’. Access to the countryside was controlled and policed by either the landowners or their keepers. But still, protesters make themselves heard. Why not a blanket right for members of the public to walk, rave or camp anywhere regardless of ownership?

There’s a howling gale and driven rain out of the window. Think I’ll stay indoors, but I reserve the right to walk across my neighbouring farmer’s fields whether it stops or not.

What do you think?