DIARY
DEBORAH DEVONSHIRE More on our attempts at Chatsworth to merge town and country. As well as our educational farmyard we have a schools day run jointly between Derbyshire Education Authority and ourselves. 2,500 bus-borne children and teachers arrive from all over Derbyshire to spend some hours in the park with the outdoor departments of the estate — farms, game and forestry — and to learn about their work. To prepare the teachers for this ordeal, they have a day's training before the event. Each department puts on a demonstration and the children actually walk from one to the other. They love the gamekeepers' show and are fasci- nated by the traps. They ask why the gun- dogs are so obedient. They see clay pigeons shot, and there is a near riot to bag the spent cartridges. Some of the teachers try clay pigeon shooting and some of the chil- dren say they wish they could shoot the teachers. Neither teachers nor children know the difference between sheaves of oats, barley or wheat, nor do they know their uses. Wheat rings a vague bell as being to do with bread. All are stumped by linseed, still in blue flower. They are amazed by the size and cost of the tractors and that they have to be replaced every few years. It has to be explained to everyone that a cow must have a calf before it gives milk.
The reactions to the forestry demonstra- tion astonished Paul and Phil, the two young foresters in charge. They talk to each group explaining how woods are planted, thinned and eventually felled — the final crop taking many years to mature. Ques- tions follow. From children: 'Do you enjoy killing trees?' Don't you feel guilty killing trees?' Why do you use chainsaws — surely axes are cheaper?' Why don't you blow up the trees with dynamite — wouldn't it be quicker?' Do you only cut down a tree to make money?' Teachers asked: 'Couldn't you let the trees die naturally before you cut them down?' The headteacher, watch- ing the mechanical tree-harvester, asked: `Don't you use axes any more? You have to plant woods? I thought trees grew from seeds.' Paul told me, 'They see forestry as legalised vandalism, despoiling the country- side. Their idea of destruction seems to come from media coverage of the rain- forests.' In desperation Paul and Phil point- ed to the huge panorama with groups of trees, young and old, and Capability Brown's plantations on the hills round the rim of the park. They asked, 'Do you like what you see?' The answer came back, yes."Well, that is what we do — we keep It looking like that.' Our farmyard and schools day have a big effect on the Chatsworth men who meet our visitors. It
has brought home to them that their jobs, and the reasons for their jobs, mystify most people. There are men here who would dearly love to spend some hours teaching children, and grown-ups. Wailers, keepers, drainers, foresters, the park gang, cowmen, the farm shop butchers, sawyers, shep- herds, tractor drivers, stockmen, arable men — the distilled wisdom of these peo- ple could do much to explain their age-old skills brought sharply up to date, but how can they spare the time from their jobs? How can our visitors know that these men make Chatsworth and its surroundings what it is, and that their peers work throughout the land? As things are now, if people go home after a day in the country knowing that even the grass they walk on is a crop, and that somebody is responsible for it, we shall have taken a tiny step towards our goal.
Ican't remember laughing out loud at anything I have read in the Times for years till a piece from the Washington correspon- dent about American nannies appeared. I thought the point of Americans was that they don't have nannies, that women are judges and all sorts of other things while the children bring themselves up. A notable example of the system, I thought, was Mark Thatcher's half-American baby, whose legs, still at the pipe-cleaner stage, were shoved into navy-blue dungarees at a month old, obviously expected to go out to work pron- to. Just to complicate the issue, a woman (well, a sort of woman) called Ms Ireland, who is leader of a sort of women's organi- sation called the National Organisation of Women, is on the prowl to discredit men who have important jobs in Mr and Mrs Clinton's administration. These despicable fellows may have employed women to look after their children. What I'd like to ask Ms Ireland is how did these men get their chil- dren in the first place? Could it be that yet
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another woman was involved? Not Ms Ire- land, of course. Perish the thought that she could have been in close enough contact with a man to result in a baby, who might even demand some years of luxury on the lap of an illegal nanny. Excitement mounts daily. Now we find that Ms Ireland might have bitten off more than even she can chew. Arising out of pretty Judge Kimba Wood's five-day training course as a Bunny Girl, Ms Ireland is to discover how many men in the administration read Playboy magazine, or, horror of horrors, went to a Playboy Club. At the tribunals, dear, sweet Ms Ireland will stump on to a rostrum and force the poor little men with important jobs to bow their heads and plead guilty to these crimes as well as getting the house- work done for them while they live it up in the law courts. I trust she won't come here. She would find things which would make her hair stand on end.
Ibuy most of my clothes at agricultural shows, and good stout things they are. Much better than the strange looking gar- ments in desperate colours at £1,000 each in the Knightsbridge shops. In the unlikely event of falling for one of these, you will find that all the buttons come off the first time you wear it, which is disappointing. After agricultural shows, Marks & Spencer is the place to go shopping, and then Paris. Nothing in between seems to be much good. I have learnt to pluck up courage to go through the doors of the grand shops in Paris. They look at you as if you were something the dog brought home, but once inside the magic of French talent with clothes takes over and happiness sets in, until the agonising decision has to be made about what not to buy when you long for everything. At three score years and 13, properly made clothes should last to the end — or that is my excuse. So forgotten French works of art come out of the back of the cupboard (mixed up with Barbours and Derri Boots), still beautiful and always comfortable, which is my idea of what clothes ought to be.
0 ur roof is forever being mended, 11/3 acres of it. Last week, the men found a copy of the Manchester Guardian dated 29 May 1877 under the old lead. The names of all who had worked on the roof then were recorded in the margin in thick pencil. Interesting, but not unusual here. And the headline on the 116-year-old newspaper seemed familiar: AUSTRIA & THE BOSNI- AN INSURGENTS. SERVIA PREPARING FOR WAR. SPECIAL TELEGRAM FROM OUR RAGUSA CORRESPONDENT. There followed a description of atrocities . . .
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