They shall grow not old…

Andy Thompson commemorates the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI

‘The War That Will End War’ wrote the famous Surrey-based writer HG Wells in October 1914 as he reflected on the opening weeks of what was to become known as the Great War. The chiming bells at 11 o’clock on 11th November 1918 suggested his prescience to be very accurate. The First World War cost over 10 million young men their lives, 20 million were wounded and millions more traumatised and simply sent back to pick up the pieces of civilian life. Britain was bankrupt, the class system seriously eroded and, for a great many, any thought of a loving God became a difficult concept and the role of women in Britain was changed forever.

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month this year the bells across the length and breadth of Britain rang again to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the armistice that caused the guns to fall silent, ending the war that had engulfed the world with 89 countries being directly involved in the conflict. The 11th November was a Sunday this year and across Surrey and Sussex local communities joined the nation in remembering those who made the ‘supreme sacrifice’ for their country. You only have to walk to your local war memorial to reflect on the men from your village or town who are remembered ‘In Perpetuity’ by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at one of their 23,000 sites in 150 countries.

The men who returned to Surrey and Sussex after the war were promised ‘A Land Fit for Heroes’ but reality proved to be far harsher, as the collapse in the world economy led to hardship and widespread discontent. Wages were cut, the working week lengthened as war time contracts were ended. The millions of women who had responded to the call of ‘total war’ found themselves thrown out of work as the men returned. Whilst those over 30 and who owned property were given the vote in the Khaki election held in December 1918, most women returned to their role as homemakers and mothers.

As with counties across the UK, the war brought out the best of the men and women of Surrey and Sussex. Thousands of men volunteered or were conscripted to fight for King and Country and joined their local regiments – The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), The East Surreys or The Royal Sussex Regiment. All three regiments fought proudly with bravery and discipline fashioned in their distinguished histories.

The East Surrey Regiment was deployed in August with the B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Force) and became part of the legendary ‘Old Contemptibles’ (so called when the British army was described as ‘a contemptible little army’ by Kaiser Wilhelm II). They fought in most of the major battles of the war. Seven of their number were awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest medal for ‘bravery in the face of the enemy’ and Captain Billy Neville entered the history books when he gave footballs to his attacking companies with a promise of a bottle of champagne for the first to get their ball into the German front line trench. As with 446 of his men, Captain Neville didn’t survive the first day of the Battle of the Somme. In total the regiment lost 6,223 officers and men killed during the war.

The Queen’s list of Battle Honours is equally impressive with their involvement in the bitter fighting of the autumn of 1914, Loos in 1915, High Wood on the Somme, the taking of the Messines Ridge in June 1917 and the final 100 Days in 1918 which saw the German army driven out of France and Belgium. Their casualties impacted on the communities and families around Surrey. 7,399 officers and men being killed, and 4 Queen’s being awarded the VC.

The men of Sussex would have, in the main, joined The Royal Sussex, another regiment with a proud history. They too were deployed along the Western Front and served in the ill-fated attempt to defeat the Turks in Gallipoli during 1915. On 30th June 1916, the day before Haig launched his attack on the Somme, the men from Sussex led a diversionary attack on the Germans at The Boars Head. Commanded by Lieut Col Lowther they suffered appalling casualties with over 1000 of ‘Lowther’s Lambs’ being killed or wounded. The action became known as The Day Sussex Died.

Undertones of War, the autobiography of Edmund Blunden, who fought with the regiment during most of the war, became a set text for those trying to understand and comprehend the enormity of the slaughter.
Whilst the men were fighting bravely in the front line, the women they left behind rose to the challenge of winning the war on the home front. Initially some became nurses whilst every village formed committees of women to make bandages and sandbags. By 1916 with the move towards ‘total war’, where every man or woman was directly or indirectly involved in the war effort, the women took to the plough by joining the Women’s Land Army to help feed the nation. Others moved into the factories manufacturing the weapons of war – the guns, ships, tanks and munitions to keep the men fighting. This work was dangerous and dirty – in January 1917 an explosion at the Silvertown munition factory in London killed 73 workers who were mainly women. The explosion damaged 70,000 houses and the bang was heard in Norwich and Salisbury!

When the men came home, many women became untrained counsellors offering comfort and healing to the men damaged and ravaged by their experiences in the trenches. Many were to remain unmarried as 1 million men were no longer available to become husbands and fathers. The 1921 census revealed that there were 1.7 million more women than men in the UK and they must have been very comforted when the Daily Mail called them ‘The surplus generation’.

On Sunday 11th November at 11 o’clock the nation fell silent as collectively we pause for two minutes of reflection. In 1920, the body of the Unknown Warrior was returned from the battlefields of the Western Front and was received at the Cenotaph in Whitehall by King George V. He asked the committee organising the event that as the clock of Big Ben struck 11 the nation should fall silent for two minutes – the first minute to remember the dead and the past, the second to be thankful for those who had survived and the future. In 1920 the nation did indeed fall silent – trains, traffic and factories all stopped and the populace across the land stood still.

I’m glad we did the same this year.

Andy Thompson is Chair of the Surrey Branch of the Western Front Association and a battlefield guide.
www.westernfrontassociation.com
www.eyewitnesstours.com



Health is Wealth

Jo Butler from Physio 1to1 on the benefits of keeping active

‘Health is wealth’ is a saying we don’t use enough in daily life. Unfortunately ‘Time is money’ tends to get quoted far more often. We live in a wealth-focussed landscape but it is really our health that will ultimately define us. It is our health that allows us the ability to make the most of the personal circumstances we find ourselves in.

During the good times, our good health can help us reach our highest goals and achieve our dreams and ambitions. When we find ourselves in difficult times, sometimes challenging circumstances, our good health can help us be robust enough to withstand all that befalls us and get back on our feet. Health is the currency we use to navigate through the various circumstances we find ourselves in throughout our life.

An online poll by YouGov this year worryingly found that in the past year, 74% of people have felt so stressed they have been overwhelmed or unable to cope. 46% responded that they had begun to eat too much or eat unhealthily due to stress, whilst others reported an increase in alcohol consumption. It is all too easy to get into a downward spiral with stress.

When we feel stressed a hormone called cortisol is released by the body and if this happens too often, our body can no longer respond to stress and starts to feel fatigued. Stress can also exacerbate heart, respiratory and other underlying conditions. Even something as mild as increased muscle tension can contribute to musculoskeletal injuries. We need to pay more attention to the ‘health is wealth’ mantra and take time to reflect on how our lifestyle is impacting on our inside health, then take control by taking steps to change and improve it.

As a Chartered Physiotherapist, I spend a lot of my time encouraging people to be more active. Regular exercise is one of the lifestyle choices that can have a profound effect on improving your health and wellbeing. Evidence suggests that physical activity boosts the natural production of serotonin (a feel-good chemical), not just during the activity but for hours after it. Serotonin is also used in antidepressants due to its positive effect on mood and wellbeing. Rather than take medication, you can produce it yourself just by exercising.

Starting to become active can be daunting, especially if you haven’t done much exercise before or if you are managing a health condition. It is all too easy to stop moving when you have a health condition. Keeping moving is one of the most important aspects of managing long term health conditions, ranging from arthritis, chronic pain through to conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) or Parkinsons Disease (PD).

If you have arthritis, it is okay to experience some pain, or even a slight increase in pain during and after exercise. As long as it settles back to pre-exercise levels within 24 hours, your activity level will be about right. If it lasts longer try reducing the level of exercise.

The pain should also not be too severe or coincide with protracted swelling, heat, or redness of joints. You could try exercising in a pool initially where there is decreased weight bearing through your joints. You don’t have to be able to swim, just walking in the pool, doing some squats or marching will all help build muscle strength. You can then aim to do this on land once you feel stronger.

If you have chronic (long-term) pain, focus on how your ability to do the activities changes rather than expecting the pain to reduce. Once again gradually increase your activity levels and do things at your own pace, monitoring your improvement over time.

If you are in a wheelchair most of the day, move within your level of ability. This could be arm movements holding light weights, marching your legs up and down or bending and straightening your knees. It is sometimes useful to adopt a 24-hour approach to moving. Try to break up your day so you don’t stay in the same position for too long. This is particularly important if you are limited in your ability to move. Sometimes a change of position, such as lie down in bed to stretch out your legs, can be hugely beneficial to your wellbeing.

With long term conditions you can have good and bad days. Monitor your activities based upon how you feel and don’t get overly concerned with the bad days, they will come and go. If you are unsure always talk it through with your GP or Physiotherapist. Exercise should be gradually introduced to allow your body to get used to the increased activity.

Remember ‘Health is wealth’ so take time out of your schedule to pay attention to your body. Get moving, enable those natural feel good chemicals to flood your body and melt away your tension.

Jo Butler MSc MCSP is from Physio 1to1, Physiotherapy and sports injury clinic, Godalming. Tel : 01483 424470 or visit www.physio1to1.co.uk.



Weekend Walk: Thursley to Grayswood (7.5 miles)

This interesting walk takes you through woods and fields, up and down hills and offers some splendid views. It was submitted by Guildford Rambling Club (see guildfordramblingclub.org.uk)

Turn left along the road and walk about 300 yards to find a tunnel, on the right, under the A3. You will need to hop over the low safety barrier to go down steps and under the A3. On the other side, turn left and walk out into a field. Follow the path down the slope half-left to reach trees and a stile.

Climb over the stile and drop down left onto a track and follow it to pass the house at Hole Farm. Go out of the entrance gate and turn right. Quickly fork left to follow the wide track for about 1.25 miles. Along the way pass a lake, on your right, ignore a finger post pointing left and eventually emerge on a bend in a metalled lane. Blackhanger Farm is down to the right but you continue forward over Halnacker Hill, passing a lone house to reach a road.

Turn right and walk 350 yards, passing Halnacker Cottage, to reach a road junction. Here hook back left, signed to Brook. After about 0.25 miles, find a finger post pointing right. Follow this down and then on for over a mile, along a wide grassy corridor, sometimes along the left-hand side of fields and through a number of gates until you reach a T junction with a very wide corridor. You can see the large modern barns of Witley Farm away to your left.

Here, turn right and walk up and over slight rise and on until you reach trees. Immediately you will see, on your right, an information plaque for the site of a medieval moated manor house. There is a little island, covered in primroses and daffodils in the Spring. Continue on, quickly passing a pond on your left and swinging right to follow the path into a large field. Turn right and walk along its edge to a gate onto a metalled drive. To the left is a railway bridge but you turn right.

Walk a little way, almost to South Park Farm and, here, take a footpath left and into a field. Follow the path alongside the garden fence, around the end of the garden and though a gate. Turn left and follow the hedge along the grassy track to a railway embankment. The path takes you right, through a gate and up to emerge at the start of the drive to Damson Farm. Turn left and immediately go under a railway bridge. Continue along the track, passing scattered houses until eventually emerging on the Grayswood Road with All Saints Church and the green to your right and with the Wheatsheaf further along. You could picnic in the churchyard or on the green.

After lunch, walk past the pub a little way and turn right, down a private road. Just beyond the first house, take a path forking off to the right. Follow this down into trees and then up to reach and cross the railway line. On the other side, continue forward to reach a junction with a yellow arrow pointing left (towards Haslemere) and another pointing right, into a small field. Enter the field and go straight across and out onto a track. Turn left.

Now comes a steady one mile climb. You continue along the track, ignoring a faint fork right at a point where the track swings left. Reach a T junction with another track and turn right. Pass a lone house and ignore an immediate left. The track soon swings left and you follow it, ignoring a track right. Reach a fork and follow a yellow arrow right. The track climbs steeply and swings left. At a junction with a track heading off to the left and down, go right.
The track levels out and passes the site of the Temple of the Four Winds, which was a lodge built in 1910 by Viscount Pirrie. Continue on up and then down to a barrier at a 5 way junction. Ignoring a left turn and two forks right, go straight ahead and steeply up onto Gibbet Hill. There is a trig point here, also a memorial to a murdered sailor and splendid views. Go straight across and down onto the Quiet Lane, a metalled lane. Turn right to walk along it for about 0.75 miles to its end and then beyond. A lane merges in from the left.

Either:
(1) To see views down into the Devil’s Punchbowl, just beyond this point turn left up a track signed “Unsuitable for motor vehicles”. The Punchbowl will appear to your left. Continue up and over the top and on until encountering, on the right-hand side, a green metal barrier. Here, turn right. Follow the path down and on until reaching a T junction with a wide track. Turn right and walk through to the starting car park.

(2) Or, simply continue forward down a wide metalled lane, Punchbowl Lane, to reach the starting car park.

DISTANCE: 7.5 miles
OS MAPS: Explorer 133 Haslemere & Petersfield.
STARTING POINT: Car park in Boundless Road, nr Thursley.
HOW TO GET THERE: Turn off the A3 southbound for Thursley turning right to cross the A3. On the other side turn left then quickly left again down the start of the slip road up from the A3 (if coming north, this is on your left just after you turn off for Thursley). A short way down here, turn right into Boundless Road. Drive about a mile to find a small car park on the right, just before the Boundless Road dives under the A3.



VantagePoint awarded Trade Mark Surrey Hills

Leith Hill (Surrey Hills AONB)

We are very pleased to be able to announce that VantagePoint has been awarded the Trade Mark Surrey Hills in recognition for the support we have and continue to give to the Surrey Hills AONB family. We have supported the Surrey Hills since 2009 when we first started publishing our local community magazines and will continue to do so, given we fully endorse their aims and aspirations.

In presenting the award, Executive Director of Surrey Hills Enterprises, Wendy Varcoe MBE, said: “VantagePoint Magazine is one of the outstanding Surrey organisations to be awarded the Trade Mark Surrey Hills. It is a new accreditation and a mark of local provenance and quality. The award promotes the very best of what Surrey has to offer and celebrates those organisations of high quality that reflect and support the distinct and special nature of the Surrey Hills and who share the values of supporting the local environment”.

“Surrey Hills Enterprises seeks to promote local businesses and encourage the local community to purchase local products and to support local services, which is exactly what we at VantagePoint set out to do when we published our first magazine nearly 10 years ago”, said Stefan Reynolds, publisher of VantagePoint.

“I am delighted that we have been awarded this Trade Mark in appreciation of the work we have done over the years to promote the Surrey Hills and some of the wonderful businesses, products and services within it, something we will of course continue to do into the future.”

The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “The Surrey Hills Trade Mark awards play an important role in celebrating the high-quality products and services the area is renowned for, and the awardees all deserve our congratulations”.

The award is presented by Surrey Hills Enterprises which works with local businesses to support the rural economy and to promote, protect and enhance the beautiful Surrey Hills. As a Community Interest Company, funds generated from its work go back to support the work of enhancing Surrey Hills, its landscape and local communities.

For more information on Surrey Hills Enterprises and the wider Surrey Hills AONB family, please visit their website at www.surreyhills.org.



Hampton Estate’s Fuggle Hops

Phil Kemp meets Bill Biddell for a tour of the estate’s hop garden and oast

The Hampton Estate at Seale near Farnham has been growing hops for hundreds of years and are the last commercial growers in Surrey. They specialise in Fuggle hops for beer production which are revered and used by brewers throughout the country, including The Hogs Back Brewery in nearby Tongham. In 2017 Hampton Fuggles were awarded the Wigan Cup by The Institute of Brewing and Distilling for the best sample of Fuggle hop in the UK.

Farnham has a hop growing heritage dating back to at least the late 1500s when the town was encircled by hop gardens, and was at its zenith in the late 19th century with over 1,500 acres under production. However, for a catalogue of conspiring reasons, following the First World War virtually all were out of production. I was intrigued to find out what has made Hampton fly in the face of such adversity and was invited to join Bill Biddell, who manages the estate with his wife Bridget, for a personal tour.

We met at the estate office where Bill started his introduction into their hop growing. “The Hampton Estate has always grown hops. Paul Thompson, who works for us, follows his father and grandfather who dried the hops that we’ve always grown in and around Puttenham.

We have always grown just one variety which is the Fuggle. In the mid 70s and early 80s there were thirty or forty growers around Farnham, all pretty small, and which included the Bides and the Tices who were really well-known hop names. But a lot of people were persuaded to go into new style hops because at that point there was this stuff called lager that people started to drink – and no one was drinking real ale. And Fuggle goes into real ale.”

We were standing by a wall hung with a display of photos of the estate showing the diverse activities they are involved in. As well as hop production these include producing pedigree beef and wild venison, forestry, and hosting a wide range of activities including orienteering and gundog trials. The estate is also used as a favoured location for film studios, which has recently included providing major sets for the Robin Hood and Jack the Giant Killer films.

Pointing to a photo of hop pickers hard at work on the bines strung over towering poles and wires on the slopes of the Hog’s Back I asked why they had always grown Fuggles.

“Fuggle is very hard to grow because they are susceptible to wilt, and verticillium wilt is the killer of Fuggle,” Bill explained. “If you get wilt into your hop garden then you won’t be able to grow the hop. In Kent and Herefordshire where many hop gardens are right next door to each other, if one gets wilt within a year it’s on to the next one. So there are only seven or eight Fuggle growers in the country. The breweries we supply including the Hog’s Back Brewery have all been using Fuggle in their recipes for years and years and they don’t want to change. So other hop growers say that if you can grow Fuggle hops you are the luckiest growers in the country!”

If you have travelled through Puttenham you will have undoubtedly seen the estate’s impressive hop garden alongside Seale Lane, with the tall ridge of the Hog’s Back behind. The hops enjoy the gault clay there that overlays the chalk of the North Downs. Only by standing alongside the many neat rows of healthy hop bines stretching into the distance can you get any real idea as to the scale of their operation.

“The hop plants you can see here have been going for 45 to 50 years,” Bill explained. “They stay in the ground all year-round. Now we’ve got even more hops as we’ve extended the hop garden by a further 10 acres. That means we can now look at the rest of the older hops and decide if we should take a block out, because they might not be performing well. Maybe just replant those. But we’ll see.”

When I visited it was the end of the growing season. The hops were now full of essential oils and exuding their distinctive aroma – fully mature and ready to pick. If you’ve never seen a mature hop cone, which is the flowering part of the plant, I can assure you that you’d be quite entranced, not just by the aroma but also by the sheer geometric beauty of the perfectly formed pale green leaves that make up the flower.

I asked Bill to provide a quick overview of a typical hop-producing year. “Let’s start on 1st January. There’s nothing on the garden. You can look right through the whole thing. All you’ve got are the skewers in the ground where each hop is. The next thing to do is cover the whole garden in dung to add some humus back to the soil. Then we will have a month and a half of stringing. Each plant needs two to four strings which are hung by working with long poles with a hook on the end fed a big ball of string. You walk up and down going from skewer at the bottom up to the wire and back down to the skewer… and on you go. It’s very labour intensive.”

We paused by one of the hop bines to inspect the way the hops are strung and to admire the cones hanging from a bine that must have been in my estimation a good 16ft tall.

“By April we start getting little hop shoots, with each hop plant having 40 to 50 shoots a few weeks later. But we only want two climbing the string so we train the two shoots we want and remove the rest. So now in early May you can almost watch them grow. They are like runner beans, although they go a bit faster and grow clockwise rather than runner beans climbing anticlockwise of course. By midsummer’s day the bine will reach the top wire and start to go over the top with little hops forming on laterals coming out from the main bines by mid-July. Come late August we’re ready to start picking, with harvesting by student labour in early September.”

Of course there is much more involved than space here will allow, and especially in painstakingly inspecting for any sign of disease, which as well as wilt can include various strains of mildew. Hops are also threatened by aphids and two-spotted spider mites, requiring a constant watch.

I recalled seeing photos back in the estate office of pickers working to cut the bines from the wires and then transporting these by trailer to the oast house. We were now at the farm to watch this process where the huge static picking machine removes each of the individual hop cones, the only part of the bine that the brewers need, and cleans them. The hops then go into the gas-powered kilns which reduce the moisture content to preserve them and dries them, after which they are pressed and packed into huge bales ready for storage and supply to the breweries. Each bale bears the emblem of a church bell which is a traditional symbol for Farnham hops.

Where to get the Fuggle flavour experience? Visit the websites of the breweries Hampton Estate supplies to find out more. You can even brew your own!

Phil Kemp is a Godalming-based writer and photographer. www.weyriver.co.uk

www.hamptonestate.co.uk
www.facebook.com/hamptonestatesurrey/
Breweries supplied with Hampton Estate Fuggles:
Hog’s Back Brewery – www.hogsback.co.uk/
Harvey’s Brewery – www.harveys.org.uk
The Black Sheep Brewery – www.blacksheepbrewery.com
Home brewing – www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk