NATURE COLUMN: Bill Cawley

A FEW weeks ago we took a walk around Wetton Mill. It was a place I knew well as it was a regular run some years ago.

We climbed above the cafe and past the rock shelter inhabited by man from earliest times.

The walk took place on a fine April day and my wife and I looked down to the meadows full of sheep and newly born lambs.

The hedges were alive with bird song and the woods rich with spring flowers, wood anemones being particularly plentiful.

I remembered an earlier time I came this way as a pupil at Carmountside High School in Stoke-on-trent on a geography field trip being taught about rock formations and told the difference between anticline and syncline rocks.

I cannot now be sure of the difference from a distance of half a century of what is what.

At Ecton I recall that in 1970 the copper ore was plentiful and lay scattered around the old workings.

We had our tea by a stream that fed the Manifold, picking up some discarded plastic bottles.

Passing through the now lit old railway tunnel – it was not always the case – we followed the road back to the Mill.

I remarked to Cathy about an incident on another April day 32 years before as I ran here.

It was another warm April day, a Saturday and day trippers were parked by the road listening to the FA Cup semi-final as radio reports informed shocked listeners of the terrible events unfolding at Hillsborough.

Cathy took the opportunity to pick some wild garlic leaves to make pesto.

I wondered whether covid sufferers who had lost their sense of smell might be shocked back to recover their olfactory facilities by its pungent smell.

Writing in the 1930s, Mrs Grieve thought that the smell of the wild garlic was evil and reported that every step in the woods brought out its offensive odour.

Its folk remedy powers have been known for many years. Garlic is a cleanser and was used on poultices for healing wounds. It is also believed to be a restorative for the blood.

There are several theories why garlic wards off vampires.

One is that its strong smell covers up the scent of blood and it has been effective in repelling mosquitoes, although a vampire is somewhat different from a mosquito.

Secondly, its ability to combat infection in this role it was preeminent before the introduction of antibiotics.

And then there is its power to ward off evil spirits.

In Eastern Europe cloves of garlic were stuffed into the mouths of corpses to fend off the attention of vampires.

Perhaps it was this belief in its power that lead to the end of Demetrious Mykicura of the Villas in Stoke in 1972 found chocked to death on a clove lodged in his throat.

The middle-aged Pole suffered from a severe case of Sanguivoriphobia – a fear of vampires.