Wolds World: No songs for our harvest

A few years ago, a friend of mine and his wife went on a gap year to Fiji after retirement.

They thoroughly enjoyed the experience there, but Bill came back and said he had one regret, in Fiji climate was much the same all year round and the seasons never changed.

Here in the Wolds, summer is changing to autumn, this green and pleasant land has turned to yellow with the ripened corn and now to brown as the fields are ploughed and the seed scattered.

Sad then that the cloud of covid still envelopes our land, the landscape’s beauty soiled as the pandemic returns as promised for its second wave.

Our politicians remain divided, just like much of the population.

South blames north, rural blames urban, the elderly blame students, abstainers blame drinkers - and 20 socially distanced wise old heads cannot sing hymns in a Lincolnshire country church, but pubs can empty at ten with students packing the streets outside as pictured in our newspapers.

Common sense went out the window long ago, Lincoln Cathedral Choir can sing hymns, but I’m surprised country church hymn singers are not being shot at dawn!

Lockdown, illness, bankruptcy and death have all taken their toll, and life is never as before, not even here in our Wolds.

One positive of Autumn 2020 is that the number of proper walkers passing my door on the Viking Way has never been greater.

By ‘proper’ I mean hikers or ramblers, with boots rucksack and map to hand, many with walking poles-please don’t call them sticks as I have one of the former not the latter. It has taken a pandemic for people to discover that this really is ‘An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.’

There are many who are finding these months near the end of the year very distressing this time round.

We think particularly of those youngsters from our towns and villages who were excited by their new adventure to university and the big world beyond here, only to find it the horror of a lifetime.

Paying thousand of pounds to be imprisoned is far from acceptable especially if the food comes to you on a plastic tray.

We all saw those pictures of students behind the railings of their campus, many in tears wondering what next -stick it out or go back home to mum and dad. Who would have wanted to be in the 2020 student intake this past month?

Spare a thought too for those in areas hardest hit, in Newcastle, Liverpool, Nottingham and Manchester.

I recalled my own student days. Going to study in Chester took me to a city famed for its history and culture; there are few more attractive places in the country, but there was another side to our learning.

One Sunday night long ago when I was a student, I was sent on teaching practice to Nelson near Burnley and dropped off by a bus on the main road near the town centre ready for the start of term the next day.

I asked a passer by where McKnoll Street was. ‘Up thee’re’ I was told by a man with a Lancashire accent as broad as that of cricket commentator ‘Bumble’ Lloyd.

I lugged my rucksack through row upon row of terraced houses built of black Pennine stone up almost 1000 feet to the very last street, where my lodgings for the next few weeks were situated.

At 7am I woke to the sound of the cotton mill! Those next three months were a life changing experience far from the Lincolnshire market town I had grown up in.

I thought of those terraced streets recently, many then as now overcrowded and often occupied by immigrant families, Burnley ,Blackburn, Preston, Nelson and Colne.

For the past month these aged terraced houses on the rugged Pennine slopes have been a breeding ground for the rampant spread of the most deadly disease of our lifetime.

Day after day we have waited with bated breath for the news of how many have tested positive and how many have died.

A year later, I was sent to Liverpool, to Croxteth Comprehensive, the school of Wayne Rooney in what was then Z cars territory! It was another steep learning curve, far from the tranquillity of our Wolds.

That city has problems at the moment, real problems but is facing up manfully under its Mayor, unlike Manchester which seems to be playing politics.

In August, we innocently thought the dreaded virus had run its course.

Like others we took a week off and went to Sidmouth, a lovely resort on the Devon coast. The Chancellor’s ‘eat out to help out’ lead to socially distanced queues by the bistro door.

Boris had a different holiday in mind and went north camping in the Western Highlands with Carrie.

He must have travelled on the A1 through Durham to borrow Dominic’s ‘beanie’ to protect himself against the wind. Cummings was seen in Specsavers in Barnard Castle the same day!

But we should not jest over something so serious.

By the time we returned to the Wolds, the bails of corn were standing proudly in the fields and the harvest had been gathered in, though we were not allowed to sing in celebration.

September in Lincolnshire is often the best month of the year and so it was this time around. Long hot days and balmy Prosecco evenings.

But Covid was on the march once more, turning our mindset negative. It was unfair to describe the scientists Whitty and Valance as the ‘glums as one red top did.

President Donald on the other side of the pond spoke of his resurrection from the dead, only the second man to make it!

The scientists told it as it was, of Trump we shall never know!

He was not the only one to use Covid to confuse. Journalists on national tabloids, were motivated by the principal of seizing the moment. Anything to sell papers!

With harvest past and bonfire night and Remembrance Day on hold, we look forward to Christmas, but know not what it will be like.

Shall we be able to sing our carols in the street,socially distanced around the town’s Christmas tree? I fear edicts from Rome and Canterbury might deny us use of our churches.

A final thought for the children - Santa may have to sanitise his toys before doing his rounds - but fear not, he will get here somehow.

Let’s hope things improve by then, but meanwhile don’t forget your flu jab and don’t burn your hymn book.