Favours from her Grace
From La/age Bosanquet Sir: Having read Mary Keen's article (Gardener's question time', 9 August), I must defend our Duchess. Together with rny husband we run our small family estate near Alnwick. I run a local school and he has a bookshop in the town. We have lived in the area for more than 20 years. We have watched the community become increasingly depressed as agriculture has declined and the economic base of the area has been destroyed. We have emerged from the final catastrophe of the foot-andmouth crisis battered and bruised. We have been the forgotten county of England sandwiched between well-funded Scotland and the former industrial areas of the Northeast, where much public money has been made available to counter deprivation.
Now at last the rural area is on the move. The Duchess has given us an attraction which actually works. The garden is bringing much-needed jobs. Many of the local teenagers are working there during the summer months raising essential funds for their university years: an army of volunteers helps out, creating community links which we all value; the third overspill carpark has given a boost to the local bus companies providing the park-and-ride; and the value of our housing is finally beginning to catch up.
Northumberland has always been a feudal county and has been controlled to a cer
tam n extent by a duke and duchess for centuries. Now we have a young woman who is no snob, who understands exactly what the people want to do in order to enjoy a day out, and who has welcomed them into the grounds of the castle, benefiting us all.
If the Duchess has the wherewithal to prime the grant-aiding pumps, press the correct PC buttons, take on English Heritage and extract millions from the public bodies where all the rest of us have failed, good luck to her.
Lalage Bosanquet
Ainwick, Northumberland
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