WF Deedes, Telegraph

"John Hearns" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I can't find it online,
but the WF Deedes column in today's Telegraph Weekender is superb.

I wonder if he actually is on u.r.c. :-)

Something that should be recorded for posterity is the last paragraph
(possibly apocryphal?):

'Many years ago, Ernest Marples (a lively and controversial Minister of
Transport) confided to me: "Bill, I've told the Prime Minister that if he
wants to discipline the car, he must move before the majority of voters own
cars." Harold Macmillan, a wise old bird, turned a deaf ear to such a daft
idea. So today the motorist rules the roost - though at ever greater cost.
He has the countryside at his mercy'

I submit that on or about Sat, 01 Oct 2005 18:36:41 +0100, the person
known to the court as John Hearns <[email hidden]> made a statement
(<[email hidden]> in Your Honour's bundle)
to the following effect:

Quoted message said:

I can't find it online,
but the WF Deedes column in today's Telegraph Weekender is superb.

Still not on the telegraph website. Anyone got a copy they could scan
and stick on the jolly old Interweb?

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

October 01, 2005, Saturday

Country Diary
By W F Deedes

Travelling across the Weald of Kent recently, on a beautiful autumn
morning, I fell to pondering what most threatened the English
countryside. In Kent, most people will say housing, thanks to Mr
Prescott's designs. In what was once called the Garden of England, with
its hop gardens, cherry orchards and strawberry fields, we are becoming
a mere space for London's surplus population.

But there's more to it than that, I reflected, as we threaded our way
through villages where cars were parked on both sides of narrow
streets. Rural England was not designed for the motor car age. We
flinch from the idea that cars could make any impact on the countryside
because we love our cars. At least one is indispensable. If husband and
wife are to live comfortably, two are desirable. But, once the idea
that cars should be included in any argument about the decline and fall
of the English countryside takes hold, it is surprising what you find.

Cars clog villages throughout the South-east. No old village street was
built with en suite garages. So those who occupy the cottages that were
once home to farm workers who walked or biked to work must park their
vehicles in front of their home.

Some have carved spaces from their little patch of garden; but this
only works if they have a front patch. A high percentage of car owners,
probably more than half, have nowhere to leave their car except the
road in front of the house, and in rural England this has become
noticeable.

We turn then to the behaviour of the car in rural England. At my age,
everyone seems to drive too fast. Setting that aside, we have become a
less considerate people than we were. I have coined a word for it:
"Un-other-regarding." Men and women who consider themselves dexterous
at the wheel of a car whisk through country lanes unmindful of those
coming towards them who may be less dexterous. Many commercial vehicles
driving through the countryside are totally un-other-regarding.

The tell-tale sign is the treatment of those riding horses. Some of us
still slow down to avoid the risk of the horse shying and throwing its
rider. On our journey through the Weald we passed two lots of riders
and slowed down. Both times a car whisked past us. This was due to
ignorance rather than lack of consideration. The Englishman has lost
touch with his old friend the horse. He no longer knows its ways -
except, perhaps, on the racecourse. That is sad but inevitable in our
more urbanised society.

To put it bluntly, the car is no friend of rural England but it has won
precedence in most hearts, so it is vain to fret about it. The thoughts
I have expressed here about the car in rural England are heresy. So I
need to end with a word of reassurance to car owners.

Many years ago, Ernest Marples (a lively and controversial Minister of
Transport) confided to me: "Bill, I've told the Prime Minister that if
he wants to discipline the car, he must move before the majority of
voters own cars." Harold Macmillan, a wise old bird, turned a deaf ear
to such a daft idea. So today the motorist rules the roost - though at
ever greater cost. He has the countryside at his mercy.

Quoted message said:

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

October 01, 2005, Saturday

Country Diary
By W F Deedes

All of it an account from his travelling through the countryside in
his.....car!

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon

"Tony Raven" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

October 01, 2005, Saturday

Country Diary
By W F Deedes

All of it an account from his travelling through the countryside in
his.....car!

Well in a previous article in the Telegraph, some time ago, he did sing the
praises of those who destroyed speed cameras...

Cheers, helen s

Give him a break, he is 90+ and still working.

I saw him in the Telegraph canteen recently, and while he could slowly
make his way round the self service, and he remains a great newspaper
hack,he couldn't hack it on a bike now..

pete

Tony Raven said:

Quoted message said:

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

October 01, 2005, Saturday

Country Diary
By W F Deedes

All of it an account from his travelling through the countryside in
his.....car!

[email hidden] sd / msg
<[email hidden]> dtd 4 Oct 2005
10:26:45 -0700:

Quoted message said:

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
October 01, 2005, Saturday
Country Diary
By W F Deedes

Thanks. Can't read Deedes without thinking of the Private Eye "Dear
Bill" column :-)

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

No problem Guy,

One of the biggest deceits in the above piece is that he seems to be
claiming that there was a time when 'The Great British Motorist' was a
'Gentleman' who would rather die as a consequence of running off the
road than run down even a dog. In reality even prior to WW2 the view
was that 'When in a hurry the British driver is the biggest cad in
Europe, and when is the British driver not in a hurry?' to paraphrase
from J.S. Dean's 1947 book 'Murder most foul; a study of the road
deaths problem'.

Similarly, I have a copy of 'The Art of Driving published' in 1930 by
'The Times motoring correspondent'. In this our correspondent advises
drivers not to follow the then common practice of deliberately
overtaking cyclists and other road users as close as was physically
possible so as to demonstrate ones 'driving skills' to passengers...

Regards,

Howard

in message <[email hidden]>, beek

(') said:

Give him a break, he is 90+ and still working.

Just so. I hope when I'm 90+ I'm still able to earn my living...

Quoted message said:

I saw him in the Telegraph canteen recently, and while he could slowly
make his way round the self service, and he remains a great newspaper
hack,he couldn't hack it on a bike now..

....and ride my bike (I've known several 90+ year olds who have)

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; in faecibus sapiens rheum propagabit