Grass roots
Sir: Paul Johnson’s invocation of the lawn (And another thing, 12 May) as England’s contribution to European vistas was underlined recently when the Italian foreign minister, Massimo d’Alema, spoke at St Antony’s College, Oxford. The organisers of the event had the excellent idea to plan a walk after his talk. As we all strolled past Keble College and the Parks and got close to Trinity College, where a feast was laid on for the Italian statesman, he looked right just before turning into the Broad before Wadham College and saw the full magnificence of Trinity’s lawns. ‘Giardino belissimo!’ he exclaimed.
As a minister at the Foreign Office, I tried to persuade colleagues to transform the magnificent courtyard there into a partly covered green space to be used for public events, concerts and so forth. Alas, the pleasure of parking a car for ministers and officials trumped my initiative and the FCO is lawn-free. But at least I had St James’s to look out on from my window as I tried, with enjoyment but limited success, to get Britain to take Europe more seriously.
Rt Hon Dr Denis MacShane MP London SW1 Sir: Paul Johnson is right in describing Susanna Blamire (1747-94) as ‘that fine and underrated poetess’, but wrong in claiming that she hated lawns. He correctly quotes her as writing: ‘We hate the fine lawn and the new-fashion’d planting’; but he omits her following crucial conditional line: ‘If it tears up one record of blissful old times’ a nostalgic poem in the ‘Auld Lang Syne’ tradition. Elsewhere in her Poetical Works Susanna mightily approves of lawns, notably ‘th’ enamell’d lawn’ of picturesque Painshill Park, described in her poem ‘Hope’.
Dr. Christopher Maycock
Crediton, Devon
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