Note from a small island

Bill Bryson is the new spokesman for the Campaign To Protect Rural England. This is a good thing. It takes a foreigner to go on the radio as he did this morning and point out that most countries in the world just don't have countryside like ours. It's land that's worked but is also very beautiful. In most countries the idea of going out "into the country" doesn't occur to people. The boy rang up from university yesterday to say that he and some friends had been taking advantage of the early summer to go out "into the country" in the evening and he'd seen a thing called a sunset. Said it was quite remarkable. There's hope. The picture's taken on top of Hambledon Hill, an Iron Age hill fort in Dorset. They say that General Wolfe used it to train his troops for the assault on the heights of Quebec. My pal the Major used it to tire out his dog.