Chuck out your Flymo and take a scythe to your lawn instead
Phwoar! ROBERT HARDMAN unleashes his inner Poldark
PERHAPS it’s just as well I didn’t bring a dog with me today, because I’m standing in a field waving around a 3ft- l ong razor blade on the end of a pole. Like the man in the nursery rhyme (and his dog), I’ve come to mow a meadow. I am up to my knees in wild flowers and herbs in a patch of delightful meadow and I am mowing it the traditional way — with a scythe.
Even though my technique is erratic, it’s an astonishingly effective way of harvesting a crop. It’s also therapeutic.
For thousands of years, this was how people cut their grass, corn and everything else until 1830, when Edwin Budding invented the lawn-mower. From then on, the scythe became increasingly redundant.
Apart from the Grim Reaper, still clinging to his ghostly blade, everyone else gradually moved over to machinery. But now things are moving in the other direction, with help f rom a f ew high-profile scything enthusiasts — including Britain’s favourite heartthrob and the heir to the throne.
The sight of a bare-chested Captain Ross Poldark thrashing his way through a Cornish cornfield on prime-time BBC1 earlier this year had millions of female Poldark fans swooning, and created the proverbial ‘internet sensation’.
However, his scything style, said the experts, was ‘appalling’. Indeed, it was considerably worse than my own (though I concede that the shirtless Poldark may have the edge in terms of the phwoar! factor). But it certainly helped put scything back on the map.
Now the scythe has had an even more illustrious endorsement from the Prince of Wales. In an interview for Radio 4’s On Your Farm, he reveals that he not only uses a team of scything enthusiasts t o cut his f amous Highgrove wild-flower meadow, but he has had the odd go himself.
Scything, he explains, is ‘ incredibly beneficial to wild flower production and continuity’.
With scythe sales on the up, along with scythe courses and scythe competitions, one of the oldest gadgets in mankind’s potting shed is enjoying a renaissance. Having come to find out why, I soon understand the appeal.
It is easy to learn, even for a townie such as me (who, ahem, tore up his own garden lawn and replaced it with plastic turf). Besides, it is much cleaner, much quieter and more civilised than a machine. It can even be more effective, too. And it’s good for you.
‘If you get the right posture and rhythm, it’s rather like tai chi,’ says my guide, Richard Brown, making smooth circular motions through the grass which do indeed resemble a slowmoving martial arts exercise. ‘You get the smell of the herbs and flowers, the different sounds of the different grasses — it can be a very sensual experience.’
RICHARD is chairman of the Scythe Association of Britain and Ireland, which only came into existence a few years ago. Since then, its 100-strong membership and their scythes have been invited to events across the country, from agricultural shows to royal gardens.
Richard was one of those who helped to mow the Prince of Wales’s wild-flower meadow last year. Some members have appeared in television dramas, gardening shows and even the odd film.
‘We were at this wet festival in Somerset when someone from a film company asked if we wanted to appear in Anna Karenina with Keira Knightley,’ says Richard, a Norfolk seed producer. ‘Forty of us ended up in smocks on Salisbury Plain for two days pretending we were Russian peasants.’
They were delighted to see the association in the credits.
Richard i s evangelical about scythes. He uses one to cut his l awn. Last month, he even organised a scything holiday to Transylvania. The party included the reigning British scything champion, Simon Damant.
Like Poldark, Simon is himself something of an internet sensation — but not because he favours the topless method. A video clip of a grass-cutting race involving Simon and his scythe versus a man with a tractor-mower has had more than 2.3 million hits. Guess who wins.
For a good scythe in the right hands is a formidable bit of kit. As Simon, a National Trust forester, explains: ‘The first time I tried it, I thought, “This is just hard work”, and I didn’t bother again for years. But no one had taught me how to do it. Once you’ve got a scythe that’s adjusted for you and someone shows you how, it’s wonderful.’
He races against a petrol-driven brush-cutter — a type of strimmer — at country fairs and says: ‘The scythe wins hands down every time.’
Crucially, it’s a tool for all ages. Simon recently turned 53. One member of the association is in his 80s. So I have come to Emorsgate Seeds, the Norfolk nursery where Richard Brown runs scything courses when not producing the native wild-flowers and grasses which used to flourish in our meadows, to try one out.
In the old days, these fields would be mown in summer to produce winter hay for farm animals. But since World War II, 97 per cent of our meadowland has been lost as a result of industrial farming methods.
In recent years, though, wildflowers have enjoyed a revival as local authorities sow them on verges and wasteland. Gardeners and landowners, including the Prince of Wales (whose Royal Warrant is on Richard’s catalogue), love their unruly charm and the butterflies and bumblebees which thrive on them.
‘Customers often ask how they are supposed to mow a meadow. I used to tell them to find a farmer with a tractor,’ says Richard. ‘But modern tractors are often too big.
‘Then I heard about a new type of Austrian scythe and I have been using one ever since.’
Richard, 56, had inherited an scythe that belonged to his greatgrandfather. But it had two shortcomings. First, it was designed for a much shorter man. Second, it was a heavy, old-fashioned model.
The best scythe i s one that matches the height of the user, and the most user- f riendly i s the Austrian model. Introduced to Britain some years ago by Dorset environmentalist Simon Fairlie, it is not only lighter, but has an angled handgrip that allows you stand upright.
A few diehards — and the Grim Reaper — favour the English design, but everyone else has embraced the Continental way. At around £125 for an adjustable model, it’s less than half the price of a strimmer.
Richard shows me a patch of meadow and I decide to tackle it in three ways — the lazy way with a strimmer, the old way, with an English scythe, and the new way, with an Austrian model. The brush-cutter requires a helmet, gloves and harness. It makes a dreadful noise, it smells of petrol and, after a while, my hands start to throb.
Regular strimmer-users can suffer from the medical condition ‘white finger’, caused by excessive vibration. Besides, I notice that Richard, scything away alongside me, is clearing grass more speedily anyway.
Next, I try the English scythe. It has an old Sheffield blade attached to the handle or ‘snath’. This is a steam-bent length of ash with two wooden grips which also ensure the blade never gets close enough to your body to chop off your feet.
The knack is to face the grass head- on and sweep the blade through 180 degrees in front of you without lifting it off the ground.
THAT’S where Poldark got it so badly wrong. ‘He was bending over and hacking away with it like a golf club,’ says Richard. ‘That’s back-breaking and it doesn’t cut much. He obviously hadn’t been taught how to do it.’ I am impressed what a clean cut it delivers. It trims the grass like a Flymo (provided you sharpen the blade every few yards). And when I try the Austrian version, it is easier still. It is lighter and more comfortable and I soon have a heap of sweet-smelling grass beside me.
Of course, a scythe won’t leave nice stripes on your lawn. And it’s never going to beat a tractor for big jobs (it takes a fit man a full day to scythe one acre). But it’s much more civilised than a machine.
For, unlike a l awn- mower or strimmer, scything was always a communal activity — and a chance to gossip. ‘ That’s why you don’t find many left-handed scythes,’ explains Richard. ‘You all have to go the same way or it gets painful.’
As I swish away, Richard joins in, followed by a local scythe enthusiast called Phil. As we all get in to a rhythm and the hay piles up, it’s like being part of a rowing crew or a choir. It’s easy to see the appeal. Three men went to mow, went to mow a meadow . . .
‘You should get one of these,’ says Phil. It is neither the time nor the place to admit that my lawn is actually made of plastic.