Another week in the Assisted Dying Bill committee - well, it’s only two full days but a lot of the rest of the time is spent preparing for the sessions. The ‘Pro’ side has the Government, and a multi-million-pound campaign group, supporting it; my side has a handful of volunteers. Follow me on twitter if you want updates on how it’s going (in a word - it’s going badly, if you believe the Bill needs stronger safeguards to protect the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill, and just about everyone approaching the end of their life whose relatives might be eying up their assets. See here).
Back in Wiltshire I had the pleasure of joining Colin Heber-Percy, vicar of Burbage, Shalbourne, Ham and Buttermere, at the White Horse bookshop in Marlborough for the launch of his book Lost in the Forest: Notes on not belonging from the English countryside. Colin writes elegiacally about Savernake Forest (which I tell my children is ‘the oldest forest in England’, a fact I’m not prepared to check, like ‘Marlborough has the widest high street in England’ - these are ‘my truth’) and discourses eloquently and amusingly about the human condition. In the book he rambles from ancient famous tree to tree, like Jacques in As You Like It, railing against our mistress the world. I went with him on a walk on Saturday - here is Colin at the Cathedral Oak (above) and Old Paunchy (below), both veterans of the Norman Conquest.
Bovine TB remains endemic in English cattle herds and it’s not clear whether the badger cull is definitively helping or not. Either way there is the tragedy of poor testing producing ‘false positives’, namely uninfected (or ‘innocent’ as farmer Jim Butler put it when we spoke) animals that have to be put down, and then inadequate compensation from Defra; all on top of a farming economy that is beset from every angle, including from the government. I discussed all this with Jim and his team, and the vet, at Manor Farm in All Cannings (see here).
The A338/A346 is dangerous, because of the HGVs I so often write about, and also because of speeding. In November a gentleman was turning out of his daughter and son-in-law’s farm onto the road near the Ogbournes when he was hit from behind; he is still in hospital now. I met his family and other neighbours to hear tales of accidents and near-misses on this stretch where blind dips make it lethal when people speed, as they do on this open, straight Roman road.
I also met my neighbour the MP for Newbury at Hungerford Station, with a rep from GWR, to plead once more for a restoration of the decent services we had into Bedwyn and Pewsey before the pandemic.
On Saturday, before my walk with Rev. Colin, I was knocking on doors in Marlborough with Councillor Jane Davies, drumming up support for the local elections on 1 May. In Wiltshire we have a comparatively excellent council - one of the few not to raise council tax to the maximum allowed, while keeping open front line services (and investing £2m in Marlborough Leisure Centre), and maintaining high children’s services and adult social care. The BBC even singled Wiltshire Council out for a commendation - see here.
