Photo of the comedian Norman Maclean taken from The Urban Clansman, the blog of the Galgael Trust

From the Guardian -

Its freshly oiled pine hull is as fragrant as a wet winter woodland. Modelled on a thousand-year-old prototype, this hulking birlinn – a Gaelic longboat – will soon be ready to sail out along the Clyde and up the west coast in homage to the time when water was Scotland’s main thoroughfare. It is taking form in an old iron foundry in Glasgow’s Govan, home to a uniquely imaginative community project called the GalGael Trust.

Here, local volunteers teach carpentry, saw-milling and metalwork, as well as boat-building and sailing – the skills so valued in the once thriving shipyards that secured for this area its reputation as the workshop of the empire. It was the inexorable decline in demand for such skills that gifted Govan the reality it contends with today: paralysing levels of unemployment, chronic alcohol and drug addiction, and habitual violence on the streets. The fractured life stories of the men who come here to learn bear witness to all this.

The GalGael philosophy addresses what many an academic study has theorised: that deprivation has psychic as well as economic consequences; that social exclusion is ameliorated as much by a sense of place and heritage as it is by targeted benefits and instrumental interventions; and that hope flourishes in the most unlikely soil. Crucially, given Govan’s history, it recognises that the future is informed by the past.

Perched on a high-backed chair as expertly rendered as anything you’d find in Heal’s, Jinksy tells of 10 lost years sitting in the house, “becoming a vegetable”, after he was laid off as a council roadsweeper. Then a pal told him about the GalGael. “I’d lost trust in people, but there’s a family feeling here. I’ve always been an outside person and this brings you back to the land. It gives you an idea of place.” Over the years, the GalGael has helped hundreds like him to regain confidence in their working abilities, relationships and community.

Gehan, who set up the trust in the mid-90s with her late partner, explains how the act of building and sailing a boat in the same way that one’s ancestors did offers an immediate connectedness that is different from academically acquired history. The fact is that many city-dwelling Scots are only three or four generations removed from rural living, and connection to the land looms large in the national psyche. Many descendants of the half-million Highlanders driven off their crofts to make way for sheep-farming now live in poverty in Glasgow. While the Scottish land reform movement has scored recent successes with community buyouts like those on the isles of Eigg and Gigha, the GalGael is restoring an area of derelict farmland in Argyll.

It is thus entirely appropriate that some of the men working here have recently enjoyed a foray into acting, as extras in a television series on Scottish history. The History of Scotland, which concluded last Sunday on BBC Scotland, proved controversial, with many senior academics lamenting its broad strokes and glaring omissions. This reaction was perhaps inevitable, given the startling lack of popular treatment of Scottish history, as well as the legacy of poor and piecemeal teaching of the national heritage in schools. For many Scots, knowledge of their history begins and ends with William Wallace – and Mel Gibson’sBraveheart version of the man at that.

The 10-part series, fronted by the archaeologist Neil Oliver, was a watchable introduction, and avoided the usual shortbread-and-saltires mythologising, even tackling the country’s role in the slave trade. But it remains to be seen if this will serve to kick-start public examination of Scotland’s political, social and cultural past, or be seen as the history box ticked for another decade. It’s worth noting that on the same network Andrew Marr has been offering an examination of just the first few decades of British 20th-century history with the same amount of airtime that Oliver had.

Homecoming, a year-long festival celebrating the Scottish diaspora that concluded on St Andrew’s Day, prompted further examination of the national self-image with the news that the centrepiece Clan Gatheringevent in Edinburgh, which attracted claymore obsessives from across the globe, had made a £600,000 loss. Those clan chiefs, so beloved of our ancestry-minded American and Canadian cousins, continue to draw resentment over their collusion in the Highland clearances.

An organisation like the GalGael is local by intention, a bespoke vision that is constantly retuned and refreshed by its participants, rather than a one-size-fits-all template imposed from Holyrood or a charitable behemoth in London. To recognise its worth is not to submit to David Cameron’s big society rhetoric, but to see how small-scale originals like this one can only succeed alongside centrally governed support structures.

If it can teach us something nationally it is that, in understanding our past, we must face the faultlines of Highland or lowland, Catholic or Protestant, nationalist or unionist that have come to define the nation, though not always the people within it. And particularly at a moment when independence is once again top of the political agenda.

Moreover, if a sense of history is about a grasp of narrative and one’s place in it, this can only assist us in imagining the future. Last year theGlasgow 2020 project, funded by Demos, found that inhabitants of some of the most deprived areas continued to tell stories of optimism for the future of their families, friends and neighbourhoods. The true legacy of history can be hope.

From YouTube -

From the Galgael website -

Folk without an enriched sense of their culture are like trees with shallow roots… To our minds, this analogy describes the loss of identity and sense of meaningless that creates vulnerability to the vagaries of the worst excesses of modern life. A situation steadily worsened by the consistent undermining of the bonds of community.

Agencies picking up the pieces and the tab for tackling the symptoms of this rootlessness are essential. But beyond this – what is called for is nothing less than to reconvene a sense of ‘peoplehood’; deep roots for an identity that builds resilience, embodies shared values, and in the same breath, transcends narrow forms of nationalism.

The very name GalGael is our way of re-rooting these notions of identity in nourishing ground and recognises that there is both a bit of the stranger and a bit of the native in us all. In history, Gal Gaidheal were a 9thC people; the Gal – the ‘strange or foreign’ Norse, embraced by the Gael – the ‘heartland people’.

As a modern day people, GalGael folk have been re-visioning inclusive forms of community that build on our interdependence rather than slip into dependency culture, and that explore our collective responsibilities, not just our rights. From this stand point, we are reweaving the fabric of our families and communities, experimenting with notions of clanship, extended family and kinship.

The news that Georgina Downs won her landmark High Court battle against the UK Government, regarding its assessment of risk in exposure to agricultural pesticide spraying, gives hope to those trying to improve the ecological impacts of today’s farming.

Here’s the news article from the Guardian -

An environmental campaigner yesterday won a landmark victory against the government in a long-running legal battle over the use of pesticides. The high court ruled that Georgina Downs, who runs the UK Pesticides Campaign, had produced “solid evidence” that people exposed to chemicals used to spray crops had suffered harm.

The court said the government had failed to comply with a European directive designed to protect rural communities from exposure to the toxins. It said the environment department, Defra, must reassess its policy and investigate the risks to people who are exposed. Defra had argued that its approach to the regulation and control of pesticides was “reasonable, logical and lawful”.

Downs, who lives on the edge of farmland near Chichester, West Sussex, launched her campaign in 2001. The judge described how she was first exposed to pesticide spraying at the age of 11 “and began to suffer from ill health, in particular flu-like symptoms, a sore throat, blistering and other problems”.

Downs said the government had failed to address the concerns of people living in the countryside “who are repeatedly exposed to mixtures of pesticides and other chemicals throughout every year, and in many cases, like mine, for decades”. People were not given prior notification about what was to be sprayed near their homes and gardens, she said.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Collins highlighted that the 1986 Control of Pesticides Regulations states that beekeepers must be given 48 hours notice if pesticides harmful to bees are to be used. The judge said: “It is difficult to see why residents should be in a worse position.”

Speaking after the ruling, Downs said her seven-year battle was over “one of the biggest public health scandals of our time”. She called on Gordon Brown to block any Defra appeal. “The government “should now just admit that it got it wrong, apologise and actually get on with protecting the health and citizens of this country”.

The case centred on the way the government assesses the risk posed by pesticides. The current method is based on occasional, short-term exposure to a “bystander” and assumes that individuals would be exposed to an individual pesticide during a single pass.

Downs said: “The judge has agreed with my long-standing charge that this bystander model does not and cannot address residents who are repeatedly exposed.” The model does not account for rural residents exposed to mixtures of pesticides and other chemicals “throughout every year and, in many cases like my own, for decades”.

She said: “The fact that there has never been any assessment of the risk to health for the long-term exposure for those who live, work or go to school near pesticide-sprayed fields is an absolute scandal, considering that crop-spraying has been a predominant feature of agriculture for over 50 years.”

Downs’ campaign has collected evidence from other residents who report health problems including cancer, Parkinson’s disease, ME and asthma, which they claim could be linked to crop-spraying.

The judge said “defects” in Defra’s approach to pesticide safety contravened a 1991 EC directive. He said Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, “must think again and consider what needs to be done”.

A Defra spokesman said: “The protection of human health is paramount. Pesticides used in this country are rigorously assessed to the same standards as the rest of the EU and use is only ever authorised after internationally approved tests … We will look at this judgment in detail to see whether there are ways in which we can strengthen our system further and also to consider whether it could put us out of step with the rest of Europe and have implications for other member states.”

The European parliament’s environment committee last week approved new ways of assessing the risk of potentially hazardous sprays to protect crops and plants. The new criteria are part of an attempt to halve the use of toxic products in European farming by 2013. A final vote on the proposals is due next month or in January.

Backstory

Georgina Downs was first exposed to pesticide spray in the garden of her parents’ house near Chichester, West Sussex, in 1984 when she was 11. She suffered several years of ill health, and after years of study into the possible causes, she founded the UK Pesticide Campaign in 2001. A hard-hitting video of a mannequin picnic in her garden, regularly drenched in pesticide spray, helped make her case. She has won many plaudits and awards, and was joint winner of the Andrew Lees Memorial Award at the 2006 British Environment and Media Awards.

Here is the statement Georgina Downs gave outside the High Court after her victory, published on her UK Pesticdes Campaign website -

I would like to start by confirming that I have won my High Court action against the Government. Therefore I am obviously very pleased with today’s result, and have been fully vindicated, as this case was based on a set of core arguments that I identified and have been presenting to the Government over the last 7 years.

The Judgment from Mr. Justice Collins is very clear in that the Government has been acting unlawfully in its policy and approach in relation to the use of pesticides in crop spraying, and that public health, in particular rural residents and communities exposed to pesticides from living in the locality to regularly sprayed fields, is not being protected (and this applies to both acute effects and chronic long term adverse health effects).

This is obviously a very significant and landmark ruling for the potentially millions of residents throughout the country who, like myself, live in the locality to pesticide sprayed fields.

The Government’s method of assessing the risks to public health from crop-spraying is based on the model of a ‘bystander’, in which it assumes that there will only be occasional, short-term exposure to the spray cloud at the time of the application only, from a single pass of a sprayer and to only one individual pesticide at any time.

The Judge has agreed with my long-standing charge that this bystander model does not and cannot address residents who are repeatedly exposed from various exposure factors and routes to mixtures of pesticides and other chemicals, throughout every year, and in many cases, like my own situation, for decades. Obviously those living near pesticide sprayed fields will include vulnerable groups, such as babies, children, pregnant women, the elderly, people who are already ill and who may be taking medication, amongst other vulnerable groups where the health risks are increased.

The fact that there has never been any assessment of the risks to health for the long-term exposure for those who live, work or go to school near pesticide sprayed fields is an absolute scandal considering that crop-spraying has been a predominant feature of agriculture for over 50 years. Under EU and UK law the absence of any risk assessment means that pesticides should never have been approved for use in the first place for spraying near homes, schools, children’s playgrounds and other public areas.

Reports of adverse health effects in rural areas have gone on for decades. In 2003, I produced a DVD that I presented to the Government, its regulators, (the Pesticides Safety Directorate) and main advisors, (the Advisory Committee on Pesticides) that featured individuals and families from all over the country reporting acute and chronic long-term illnesses and diseases in rural communities surrounded by sprayed fields.

It is important to note that the acute effects reported by people on the DVD are the same acute effects recorded in the Government’s very own monitoring system, such as rashes, itching, sore throats, burning eyes, nose, blistering, headaches, nausea, stomach pains, burnt vocal chords, amongst other effects. Government officials and advisors have therefore been fully aware for years of the adverse effects that are being confirmed by its own monitoring system, but the Government has continued to accept such effects as not being serious. Today’s Judgment again recognizes that it is unlawful for the Government to have added in a qualification to the standard of the European Directive which requires that pesticides are not approved for use until it has been established that there will be “no harmful effect” at all on human health.
Also by the Government allowing acute effects to be considered acceptable it is then also allowing the risk of chronic illnesses and diseases, because the risk of chronic effects developing can increase when acute effects repeatedly occur as a result of long-term cumulative exposures. This has been recognised previously by the European Commission that acknowledged that “Long term exposure to pesticides can lead to serious disturbances to the immune system, sexual disorders, cancers, sterility, birth defects, damage to the nervous system and genetic damage.”

The most common chronic long-term illnesses and diseases reported to me by rural residents include various cancers, leukaemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, ME, asthma and many other medical conditions.

The Judge has concluded that the DVD contained solid evidence that residents have suffered harm to their health, particularly in relation to acute effects, and that a different approach should have been adopted and accordingly there has been a failure to have regard to material considerations and a failure to apply the European Directive properly.

The crucial evidence I produced for my case in 3 very detailed Witness Statements, shows quite clearly that the Government has knowingly failed to act, has continued to shift the goalposts, cherry picked the science to suit the desired outcome, and has continued to issue grossly inaccurate information and mislead residents and the wider public by continuing to assert that the current regulatory controls in the UK are robust and fully protective and that pesticide spraying is safe. The Government’s response to this issue has been of the utmost complacency, is completely irresponsible and is definitely not “evidence-based policy-making,” and has now been ruled by a High Court Judge to be in breach of European (and UK equivalent) legislation. As I have always maintained from the outset of my campaign this is definitely one of biggest public health scandals of our time. In fact the UK Government’s relentless and extraordinary attempts to protect the industry as opposed to people’s health has been one of the most outrageous things to behold in the last 7 years of my fight. This is especially apparent at the moment as not content with not protecting its own citizens the UK Government has been trying to scupper new European pesticide proposals from having the primary focus on health protection of citizens across Europe, to one of primarily protecting the industry.

Therefore today’s judgment is extremely damaging to the Government, all the Government departments, officials and scientific advisors, responsible for pesticides, as it clearly confirms what I have always said from the outset of presenting my arguments in 2001, that the Government has fundamentally failed to protect people in the countryside from pesticides and has also knowingly allowed residents to continue to suffer from adverse health effects without taking any action to prevent the exposure, risks and adverse impacts occurring.

Of course whilst it is right that the Government as a whole is held responsible and accountable for its unlawful policy and approach, there is no doubt that there are a number of people within Government who have a very key responsibility for presiding over this fundamental failure in duty to protect the public from pesticides and those people should now be sacked with immediate effect. I would like to name just a few of these people. First of all David Milliband who previously held the position as the Secretary of State for DEFRA and who did not see it as necessary to meet with me to even hear the case and arguments presented in relation to residents exposure to pesticides and reported ill-health and neither did Hilary Benn the current DEFRA Secretary of State. Paul Hamey who has been in charge of the exposure assessment at the Pesticides Safey Directorate, since 2001 and has had direct responsibility for the exposure model that has been ruled unlawful in the Judgement today. Kerr Wilson Chief Executive of the PSD, Sue Popple the former director of policy at PSD, and now an official working within DEFRA, Richard Davis, Director of Approvals at PSD and Jon Battershill, the secretariat for the Government’s Committee on Toxicity. And last but by no means least Professor David Coggon who featured heavily in this case as he was the Chairman of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Pesticides between 2000 and 2005 and is now a chairman of another advisory committee, the Committee on Toxicity. Professor Coggon was responsible for introducing the adjective serious to describe the standard of the legislation which has been found to be an error in law in today’s Judgement. He also previously informed me that he only saw 15 minutes out of my 2 hour DVD (the one that the Judge has called solid evidence, and that should have led to the ACP adopting a different approach), as Prof Coggon said it was not good use of his time to watch any more. He has continued to maintain that this is merely a social issue, when the reality is that this is obviously a very serious public health issue.

I would now suggest that the Prime Minister himself sees the evidence I have presented in my case first hand without being told by his advisors that there is nothing wrong as that has been shown today to not be the case and I would urge the Prime Minister to step in and stop his Government from appealing this decision, as the Government should now just admit that it got it wrong, apologise and actually get on with protecting the health of the citizens in this country.

The most important action that must be taken, based on the evidence that adverse effects are occurring, is to prevent exposure for residents and communities by banning crop-spraying around homes, schools, children’s playgrounds and other public areas. Considering studies have shown that pesticides can travel in the air for miles then the distance of the no-spray area would need to be substantial.

I hope this Judgment now puts to rest any attempts by various parties to criticize me for what I am doing. I have worked to the highest professional standard in the campaign I have run and have been meticulous with accuracy and attention to detail. With all the unarguable scientific evidence I have amassed over the last 7 years, I would be acting completely irresponsibly if I didn’t do what I do. I should not have had to have spent the last 7 years of my life fighting to get the Government to do something on this when the evidence and arguments I identified were very clear from the outset and the Government should have acted when I first started to present the case in 2001.

Finally, I would like to thank my legal representatives, Michael Fordham QC, Emma Dixon, Derek Sutton and others at Blackstone Chambers, as well as all those at Foresters Solicitors, especially Joe Mensah and Robbie Manson, for all the work and support in this case and for agreeing to work in my very unique way, as I have been directly and fully involved in all preparations relating to this case and its overall management.

I would also like to thank all those who have supported the campaign over the last 7 years, all that support has been invaluable and is what has kept me going in this battle on behalf of all those who have had their health and lives destroyed due to the government’s very own policy.

Some might say that this event presents ‘a new hope’ -

Brithdir Mawr, according to Wikipedia, means ‘Great Speckled Land’. You can find out more about the story of the roundhouse from its dedicated website.  In the mean time, below is the latest news from the Times -

Tony Wrench was toasting victory over the planners yesterday with a glass of wine made from the vines that grow on the turf roof of his wooden roundhouse.

After ten years of planning battles, during which he and his partner, Jane Faith, faced having to demolish the home they had built themselves, they have finally won the right to stay.

The roundhouse, known officially as “That Roundhouse”, was built in a hidden corner of a farm in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. It has a grass roof and walls built from cob – a combination of mud, straw, sand and water – and 16in (40cm) logs. A skylight was salvaged from an old coach and a milk churn is used as a stove.

For years no one knew it was there until a pilot carrying out an aerial survey spotted the glint of Perpex and the planners went in to investigate.

What they found was a community in which Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit from The Lord of the Rings, would have felt at home. Smoke curled from the chimney of the grass-roofed roundhouse. Mr Wrench, who was once a council official, was scraping a living from music-making and woodturning.

The roundhouse is part of the self-sustaining Brithdir Mawr Community, which had built several other environmentally friendly buildings, including a geodesic dome and a house made from straw bales.

Unfortunately, none had planning permission and the National Park authority took immediate action to have their occupants evicted. In 2004 Mr Wrench, who spent £3,000 building his 34ft diameter house, was about to start demolition when local people rallied to his support. The issue was raised in the Welsh Assembly but the application was rejected time and again by the park authority.

But then the wind changed and the environment suddenly became a fashionable issue. Mr Wrench, 62, who has been pioneering the concept of “permaculture” for decades, found his lifestyle being hailed as a model for sustainable living. The park authority amended its rules to allow “low-impact” housing, and yesterday he was told that the roundhouse is no longer condemned.

“The planners did everything they could to get rid of us, but we have been able to prove to them that it is possible to have a sustainable and low-impact community in the countryside,” Mr Wrench said.

“It’s great that our efforts to build a community using renewable resources have now been supported. We had to prove that we were improving the bio-diversity of the area and conserving the woodland – and we did that.

“I would urge other councils and national park planners to take the same view as Pembrokeshire National Park. The planners have worked miracles in making a new policy, which enables communities that are self-sufficient to exist.”

Mr Wrench and his partner generate their own power, have a compost lavatory and burn wood they coppice themselves for heat and cooking. He admits that living sustainably can be hard work, especially in the depths of winter when his wind turbine and solar panels struggle to power a single light bulb.

Emma Orbach, 52, who founded the community, said: “It’s a milestone in a free society that a minority of people who wish to live simply on the Earth are now being given this opportunity. The villagers are pioneering a new lifestyle.”

Planning approval has been given for eight roundhouses, along with lavatories, agricultural buildings and workshops on the land. Power is generated on-site, water is collected locally and three quarters of the villagers’ income comes from working the land and from craft industries.

A National Park spokesman said: “It is pleasing that support can be given at this stage in a longstanding and complicated case.”

Ecological alternatives

— Grass roofs are a coveted must-have for any eco-conscious homeowner, but alternatives include insulating lofts or wall cavities with sheep’s wool – renewable, durable and naturally resistant to fire

— Fill your home with potted plants, which remove harmful chemicals such as benzene and carbon monoxide. Bamboo palm and gerbera daisy are particularly good

— Don’t rely on mains electricity to pump harvested rainwater. One alternative is a solar fountain, which powers a low-voltage pump using a small panel. A complete fountain will cost upwards of £100

— Have a go at ground-source heating, a way of drawing heat from the ground using either a borehole or pipes laid a few metres below the surface. It must be boosted to the level needed for heating a home using a heat pump. In a well-installed system, every unit of electrical energy put in will yield three or more units of heat energy Invest in a condensing boiler, which increases efficiency by recovering heat normally wasted in the hot flue gases given off by a conventional boiler. It may cost a little more (between £100 and £300) to install, but will use less fuel

— Don’t be bashful about more radical steps. Composting of human waste is as old as the hills. The right amount of “soakage” – typically using sawdust, straw and earth – gives good decomposition. Keeping urine separate is the key to avoiding a bad smell

Source: Centre for Alternative Technology

There is a movement, sweeping across the UK, called Transition Towns. Here is the man responsible, Rob Hopkins, explaining what it’s about -

Forest Row in East Sussex is one such place that is aiming to become a ‘transition town’. Here is information from the ‘Transition Forest Row’ flier -

Climate change may appear to be overwhelming and we may at times feel powerless. The complexity of our political system only allows change to come slowly. By empowering ourselves to take action locally, perhaps we will find ways of living and working that will prepare Forest Row for whatever the future may bring.

Transition Forest Row seeks to engage our village, along with all existing local groups and initiatives, to begin to look at how our way of life affects the environment. Coming together through Transition is an exciting and enriching opportunity to reclaim and get to know our community in a new way.

Transition Forest Row is part of an international movement that is inspiring communities to explore the transition from oil dependency to relocalised, resilient economies. There are over 600 communities involved.

Article in The Times about an archaeological dig in Cornwall, with subsequent comments submitted by other readers -

Mysterious pits shed light on forgotten witches of the West

by Simon de Bruxelles

Evidence of pagan rituals involving swans and other birds in the Cornish countryside in the 17th century has been uncovered by archaeologists.

Since 2003, 35 pits at the site in a valley near Truro have been excavated containing swan pelts, dead magpies, unhatched eggs, quartz pebbles, human hair, fingernails and part of an iron cauldron.

The finds have been dated to the 1640s, a period of turmoil in England when Cromwellian Puritans destroyed any links to pre-Christian pagan England. It was also a period when witchcraft attracted the death sentence.

Jacqui Woods, leading the excavations, has not traced any written or anecdotal evidence of the rituals, which would have involved a significant number of people over a long period. There are no records of similar practices anywhere else in the world.

Ms Woods, an archaeologist who has advised on the discovery in 1991 of Europe’s oldest human mummy, the “Iceman”, in an Alpine glacier, has been digging at the site at Saveock Water for the past eight years. Saveock Water was, in the 17th century, a community of five houses whose occupants worked at a nearby mill.

Human occupation of the site dates to prehistoric times but some of the activity uncovered was more recent. A stone-lined spring that may have been a “holy well” was full of offerings from the 17th century, including 125 strips of cloth from dresses, cherry stones and nail clippings.

There was evidence that the well had been filled and the site destroyed to hide what went on there.

Each of the feather pits, which are“ about 40cm square by 17cm deep (15 by 6in), have been carefully lined with the intact pelt of one swan and contain other bird remains.

The pits where the contents were intact also contained a leaf parcel holding stones that experts have traced to Swanpool beach, 15 miles (24km) away, an area famed for its swan population. Ms Woods said: “Killing a swan would have been incredibly risky at this time because they are the property of the Crown.”

There was a particularly macabre discovery in one of the feather pits: fifty-seven unhatched eggs ranging in size from a bantam to a duck. They were flanked by the bodies of two magpies, birds that have long been the subject of superstition in Cornish folklore. The organic remains survived because they were preserved in the water-logged ground. Although the shells of the eggs had dissolved, the membrane remained, revealing chicks shortly before they were due to hatch.

Ms Woods said: “A lot of the paganism of the Celts was wiped out by the Romans, but not in Cornwall.

“Swan feathers had a connection with fertility. It’s possible these offerings were being left. Then, if there was a conception, nine months later the person would return to empty the pit.

“Often when secret rituals are abandoned people will talk about ‘things that were done in my grandmother’s day’ but there has been no whisper of this. It really makes me wonder whether that is because it is still going on.”

Ms Wood will deliver a paper on the feather pits at the World Archaeology Conference in Dublin in June.

Burnt, hanged and drowned

— The pits were created in the 17th century when the law stated “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”

— Thousands of women, the vast majority innocent, were burnt, hanged or drowned

— The first Witchcraft Act was passed in 1541

— In the mid-16th century, when it was believed that the plague was the work of sorcery, persecution of witches reached a frenzy The death penalty for witchcraft ended in 1735

— Last week the Scottish Parliament was asked to approve a pardon for the 4,000 people killed

— The last person to be convicted was Jane Rebecca Yorke, a medium who was fined £5 in 1944 for claiming to be able to contact dead servicemen

Source: Times database

Comments -

Well, the common mistake of the New Age type archaeology – equating sorcerers with ‘pagans’. This is just evidence of folk superstitions, not of a link to pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon religion. They could very well practice sorcery and believe they were Christians. Many old women in Russian countryside practice sorcery, but they would be insulted if you called them pagans – they insist they they are Christian and keep to all the traditions.

Maria Eliferova, Moscow, Russia

get so tired of the phrase “suffer not a witch to live” that was the King James version of the bible. He had it changed because he was afraid of witchcraft. The original Hebrew version stated “suffer ye not a poisioner to live”. Most of the women killed as witches had property that the church or rich people wanted and the only way they could get if was if they were dead.

Dee Horn, Bakersfield , CA USA

Yeah. Some still followed the old pagan ways, including the belief in various forms of folk magic. The vast majority, though, were Christian.

Tina, Lansing, Mi

“Thousands of women, the vast majority innocent”
Does this suggest some were actually witches?

Lee Mc, Barrow,

It all seems loopy now, but perhaps a number of the women actually did think of themselves as witches? “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” – doubtless the city fathers believed then in their time, it was “reasonable” and in the context of vast numbers hanged for petty offences -

Dennis, Canberra,

Yes, but does it work?

Liz, Bristol,

Guilty of superstion yes – but witchcraft may be stretching it on one finding.

Karen, Richmond, VA, USA

How to tell if you’ve a witch? drown her and if she drowns true then she’s innocent. But if the crone survives the ducking pond then you have a witch. Then you must burn her for her souls sake.

kevin, Lincoln, UK

“Thousands of women, the vast majority innocent…”
So some were guilty of witchcraft then?

gronskog, Bath, UK

More can be found out about the Saveock archaeological dig here.

Britain enjoys a rich endowment of trees. Thanks to the Normans, who planted hunting forests, we can claim more ancient ones than any other country in Europe. We haven’t got anything as iconic as the plane tree of Kos in Greece, a descendant of the one under which Hippocrates supposedly taught students 2,400 years ago. But while Kos may have the largest plane tree in Europe, the Fortingall Yew in Perthshire is possibly the oldest tree in Europe, according to the Woodland Trust, one of the backers of the scheme, which hopes to log 100,000 ancient trees by 2011. It is salutary to be reminded of the grandeur of our trees, as it was 20 years ago this month that the strongest winds for nearly 300 years uprooted 15 million trees.

- from a Guardian Environment Leader. Whilst Roger Deakin’s disapproval about the fetishisation of trees (’Trees to him were herd creatures, best understood when considered in their relationships with one another’ – from Robert Macfarlane’s lyrical memorial article about Deakin) rings true, to my mind the beauty of the Woodland Trust’s project is its collective effort of appreciation.