Red Kites and the Chilterns

I don't know the Chilterns very well but I do see a lot of Red Kites there when travelling on the M40. So yesterday it was good to watch them from a footpath.

A few of my rugby chums were gathering ahead of the England v France match and one of them, Stuart Fletcher, invited us on one of his guided walks - an 11-mile hike from Great Missenden to High Wycombe.

You can't walk anywhere in the Chilterns these days without seeing lots of Red Kites. They dominate all the other bird life. But there weren't any here at all until about 1992 when a breeding pair were brought over from West Wales.

The breeding programme has been phenomenally successful and although there are still tagged birds in the area, far more of them are untagged. The Chilterns is thought to have between 400 and 500 breeding pairs today. It's one of those programmes where there is no longer any need to collect sightings, other than tracking how the birds are extending their range. I hope it won't be long before they reach Surrey.

The Pirates of Camp Pete

As Kate Quinn said: "When blokes organise things....." In the wake of last year's Camp Dick, Peter Allen, one of our rugby-watching group, decided it was time he had a "Camp Pete."

Peter has a farm at Bampton Grange in Cumbria. He timed the event to coincide with the annual River Lowther raft race and thought it would be a good idea if we entered a team.

My problem was fishing. We didn't get away from the River Dee until the Sunday morning and the raft race was some time on Sunday afternoon. I didn't know the start time, nor whether my presence was required. It was.

Seamus, Simon (aka The Philanderer) and Stuart had formed a team but they were one down.

The lads are all getting older and they needed a master paddler. Short of that, they decided I would do. But we dawdled too much on the motorway and came off the wrong exit. By the time we arrived in Bampton Grange the race had started.

The raft was fine: four plastic drums held together expertly with rope and Japanese lashings, set off with a large pirate flag. But it was a little bit underpowered as its motley crew puffed and wheezed down the course.

I was there, on the bridge, to cheer them on and record the finish on my camera. But the cheers fell on stony ground, or rather the stony bottom of the river,as the pirates made me walk the plank. "Good sport Dick," said Simon, as if I had any choice.

Cinema buffs may know that Bampton was the location for the film, Withnail and I responsible for such classic lines as this one: "We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here, and we want them now." The place has atmosphere.

Later we chewed the fat around a camp fire with a few beers and Cumberland sausages, then settled down in our tents as the wind whipped up in to a howling gale. British summer time. Don't you just love it.

Camp Dick 2007

The idea for Camp Dick started over a pint or two in the Angel and Crown, Richmond, before one of the winter internationals. There was my 50th birthday coming up and I wanted to do something a bit different. The birthday itself would pass quietly on the river in Scotland (well, not without a whisky or two) so I thought I'd be greedy and have another in the summer.

I like to think of myself as an outdoors type. A field would do nicely. One of my favourite fields is a bit of National Trust land at Golden Cap in Dorset. By way of facilities it has a tap which is all you need as far as I'm concerned. The rest of one's needs can be handled with a neatly dug hole in the ground.

Plain Bonkers

"The problem with that, Dick," said a rugby mate(my rugby mates and northern friends all call me Dick), "Is that some people will balk at a hole in the ground." In fact some people, particularly those hovering around their 50th year, regard the idea of swapping a comfortable bed for a drafty tent as plain bonkers.

But not where I come from. In God's own country we're brought up to appreciate the hard life and there's nothing we like better than to sit around and chew the fat about it.

Mushy peas

I wanted a kind of northern party: good beer, mushy peas, pies, black pudding with plenty of sleeting rain ideally on a wind-swept moor.

"Why don't you come and use our field?" said Seamus who lives on a wind swept moor.

You know how some of the daftest ideas seem credible after a few pints of beer? Well it sounded a great idea. What's more, at the next match he said that Kate, his wife, had given it her stamp of approval. If Kate liked the idea we just had to do it.

Big shorts

Fortunately we had invited enough people who enjoy camping. People like Stuart Fletcher who relished the opportunity to get out his primus stove, maps and big shorts. Then there were the kids who found that sitting round a camp fire chatting and joking had the edge on instant messaging.

It helped that Seamus and Kate are both Scout leaders so we could borrow some tents, benches, trestle tables and cooking gear. My mother-in-law meanwhile had taken care of the vital mushy peas that had been steeping away at her house for some time. I like mushy peas - always have. But Gill doesn't like them so there's only about three times in our marriage when I've had them the proper way, cooked with a ham shank.

In case anyone was worried about the weather, I said on the invite that it would be good. Well you have to be optimistic.

The idea was that everyone would arrive on the Friday night for a gentle bedding in, with a walk the next day and more of a party on the Saturday. As it turned out the weather forecast was not good but we seemed to have been blessed with the one reasonable weather hole in the British Isles on the Friday so we got stuck in to the beer from the start. It was a good do.

It was one of those dos where the conversation starts where it left off 15 or 20 years earlier, where you can sing a song badly and everyone sings with you, where something goes wrong and no-one gives a damn.

One of those dos where everyone mucks in without being asked. Where washing up gets done, sausages get cooked and spills get cleared up as if by magic. Yes, there's a lot of hard work, but it's spread around and the work adds to the pleasure in some strange way that defies understanding. All I know is that it works.

Royston Vasey

We hiked over to Marsden which some may recognise as the setting for the "local shop" in Royston Vasey from the League of Gentlemen TV series. The pub at Tunnel End is difficult for parking so ideal for walkers. We even had sunshine for the trek back over the moor.

The mushy peas, meanwhile, had been stored in the garage where the temperature was rising. By the time we got back they were fermenting away like a Hollywood swamp. Remember the scene in Psycho where Norman Bates dumps the car in to the muddy lagoon? Well they were like that.

As the peas had been converted to compost, there was nothing for it but a dash to Tesco by Kate and Gill grabbing all the cans they could. "Sorry," the girl tells them at the checkout. "Company policy says you can't buy more than 10 of any item." So they have to do relay trips until they have enough.

Some of the nicknames seem a bit odd now. Gooch, for example, has not had his Graham Gooch moustache for many years. But he's still Gooch. "Captain" Briggs wore the peaked captain's hat just the once but it was enough for life. Rocky is Rocky because he's sort of Rocky. I've forgotten how Godber got his name but it was needed. Like each of the aforementioned plus "Mil" - the other one - his first name is Steve. There are just too many Steves.

Vegetarian option

On the last night it rained a bit but we clung to that campfire like limpets, sticking on more wood that dried the front of you as quickly as you got wet. In the end the song sheets were too soggy to read and the walking had taken its toll - see Simon's account here with a picture of the mushy peas.

Next morning it was the Yorkshire vegetarian option of double black pudding with sausage and egg, then down with the tents. It was a good craic, as they say in Ireland.There's nothing like meeting old friends. If any are reading this now, a hearty thanks for coming along and making it what it was. But the biggest thanks go to Seamus and Kate for making a daft idea reality. We had a good one. Looking at the weather today it was a close run thing.


Pictures of Camp Dick here. It should be easy to download any you might want.