DIARY
DEBORAH DEVONSHIRE he gap between town and country exer- cises the minds of country people for obvi- ous reasons. Town people are irritated by nur smug, know-all attitude to the myster- les.we have been brought up with. We are trying to do something about it at Chatsworth. Anyone of my age or older II it is possible to be any older — remem- bers the time when vast numbers of town- dwellers had a relation with a farm, or a friend who lived in the country with whom they spent holidays, roped in to help with all the routine jobs. A few Shorthorns pad- dled down the village street to the cowshed to be milked — in summer, the doors were °Pen, nothing was hidden, and all was taken for granted, including dung and flies. Most farm-wor kers, on their horribly low weekly wage of 35 shillings, kept a pig and chickens as vital sources of food. Their chil- dren were brought up with them and knew very well their fate; they saw them killed to be eaten and were thankful because there wasn't much else in the larder. They saw ,,°°*s milked, cart-horses fed, groomed and bedded; they saw them ploughing, harvest- ing and haymaking, and all the boys in the village enjoyed the ratting on threshing days. Women, and children with special dis- pensation from school, went potato-picking for two weeks in October. With us this hap- pened till 1969. They experienced at first and the winning of a staple food from the earth. No longer — the same potatoes five in beautiful blue bags in our farm s''OP and no one stops to think where they came from. I don't suggest that town chil- dren saw all this, but some rubbed off and was remembered. Then small mixed farms With ith livestock disappeared, and Spain was invented. Now most country children are as ignorant of farming practice as their urban c2usins. Everything is specialised, sanitised, -Lnors are locked, pigs and chickens are hIcePt in thousands in heated houses, unseen f"Y people living next door. The face of arining has changed and contact with the earth or farmstock is out of reach for any- °Ile except blinkered exacerbated in their nar- r°W fields. All this is cerbated by rules and regulations, health and safety gone Mad. At the same time there is a passionate slIci growing interest in rural matters. Per- "aPs because so much happens out of sight 13e nple are very curious, besides having the lattioral longing to get out and walk and o, t about 25 years ago we began to get let- e,rs from teachers asking to bring their felasses to learn how the land is used, both °r faing and forestry. The letters thing a flood. The whole idea was some- tisMg new, and you will remember it was the time the environment began. We decid- ed to bring examples of all the animals and birds on the farms into some buildings near the house. The idea was to explain the life- cycle of the stock, how they are fed and looked after, and their ultimate fate. Milk, meat, wool and eggs from the farms, and timber and its uses, are shown and explained. It opened in 1973. The birds and beasts settled happily into their new life of being stared at during the day. The herbi- vores grazed in paddocks at night. That part was predictable, but the interesting thing was, and is, watching the people watching the animals. The best moment of the day is the milking demonstration with a commentary by the dairyman. The children are fascinated. They remain transfixed in rapt attention till moved on by teacher or parent. If they were as interested in reading and writing there would be no more illitera- cy. I asked one little boy from the middle of Sheffield what he thought of the milking. `It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in me life. I'll never drink milk again.' My idea was for the children to leave with a taste of new milk and a slice of real bread and real butter. Having been brought up on just that, and my sisters having lived to a ripe old age, I was told angrily that to drink raw milk straight from the cow is so danger- ous that we would be had up for attempted mass murder. I find this very depressing. But what I find more depressing is how lit- tle the teachers know of where our food comes from. Most have to learn the answers to the questions set for the chil- dren before they come.
We know the English climate is glori- ously uncertain: a beautiful day follows the dreariest, and a series of dark days brings hope for one of the other kind. Perversely, I always long for rain. It seems to suit bet- ter than prolonged dry weather which turns the land into something from abroad. Besides which, we make our own electricity from water power and a great deal of this
Classified — pages 51 and 54
God-given element is needed to do the job. The turbines were first installed 100 years ago and worked merrily away till the 1930s, when Chatsworth joined the National Grid. In 1987, one of the geniuses who looks after this place suggested that the scheme should be reborn; and so it was. Reassur- ingly, the new turbines were made by the same firm which provided the originals in 1893 — Gilkes of Kendal. After 60 dry years a torrent of water from the lakes 400 feet above the house roars under the grills in the turbine house again. Light and power are produced as though by magic. As there are 2,084 electric light bulbs in the house and countless greedier electric appliances, it is no wonder we love a good downpour.
My sister Nancy's letters are to be published this autumn, or some of them I should say, as we have got thousands here. They are kept in cardboard boxes with holes for them to breathe through. When- ever I pass by a pile of these boxes, contain- ing papers of every description accumulat- ed since the 1950s, I always hope they are a consignment of day-old chicks, which used to travel by train in the guard's van in just such boxes. They provide what Americans call Optimum Archival Conditions. I don't know about their condition, but Nancy's are certainly of Optimum Archival Amuse- ment. She had neat handwriting and the talent of filling the last page exactly, so `love from' is always at the bottom: difficult to achieve if the letter is to make sense and hers do. I am not the only one to think she was the supreme entertainer, both in real life (she and my father together were better than any turn on the stage) and on paper. Her letters are just as funny as her books. What would psychiatrists make of her teases? She called me Nine because she said that was my mental age. About right, I expect, but disconcerting when she intro- duced me to her smart French friends as `my little sister aged nine' long after I was married.
Reading Nancy's letters, which often describe clothes, reminded me of when Dior invented the New Look in 1947. My mother-in-law and her friend, the Duchess of Rutland, who were in Paris for a less frivolous reason, wanted to see the collec- tion. They arrived at Avenue Montaigne in their tweed overcoats, which had done years of war service, and ditto shoes. They weren't allowed in. Of humble natures, the two duchesses were disappointed, but not at all surprised. They sat on a bench eating their sandwiches to pass the time till they could decently return to the embassy where they were staying.
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