On Saturday Of mice and mould – and happier times

NOSTALGIA is a big thing – in the West Country we know that to be true because of the enormous popularity of the late writer David Hill’s essays in which he would wax eloquent and lyrical over the world of yesteryear.

However, there are different kinds of nostalgia and part of David’s popularity was due to the fact he liked to recall a happier, cosier, more green and picturesque version of rural England. I loved David’s book, The Farmhouse Tree, and have it in front of me now – which is why I know it harks back to a very different kind of world compared to the one I’ve been hearing and reading about in the media this week.

The news has been dominated by the Autumn Statement and the Chancellor’s talk of difficult times to come. There’s going to be plenty of hardship and we are being warned of the kind of struggles which people faced in pre-war Britain. There’s something Dickensian about the idea of the “warm-banks” which freezing citizens can enter to avoid hyperthermia.

I was just beginning to wonder what Dickens would have thought about modern poverty when a Radio Four programme introduced a book called Demon Copperhead which reimagines the famous story in contemporary rural America. The author, Barbara Kingsolver, said she believed Charles Dickens would be horrified by today’s levels of poverty.

You can certainly imagine him taking up the tragic tale of the little boy in Rochdale who died recently after being infected by black mould in his family’s rented accommodation. The family solicitor said racism on the part of local authorities and organisations was partly to blame – I have no knowledge of that, but I do know about black mould. And I reckon a great many readers will know about it too, because it is a feature of older rural homes situated in damp parts of the countryside.

My cottage, built into a steep Exmoor hillside, being a case in point. In fact, every West Country house I have lived in has had black mould. It is an unfortunate and unhealthy fact of life in this wet peninsula where outer walls are often made of porous materials such as shillet or sandstone. So while the media has been concentrating solely on rented properties after poor little Awaab Ishak’s death, I know of plenty of homeowners who suffer all kinds of asthma or respiratory problems thanks to this fungal invasion. It is difficult to get rid of – I know, I’ve spent a lifetime attacking the stuff. And if we’re all turning our heating down this winter, you can be sure the problem will worsen.

So if anyone has any tips on how to get rid of this horrible stuff, I’d like to hear them and will mention any suggestions in a future column. I say that with some optimism, because a kindly reader messaged me last week after this column complained of an invasion of mice.

“I read that mice do not like the smell of cinnamon,” wrote reader

Kim Dodden. “In fact they hate it. So a pound was well spent on a jar from the supermarket, because I sprinkled cinnamon around – in the loft, in the garage, in the airing cupboard etc etc – and haven’t seen a mouse since!”

Thanks Kim. Advice duly followed. Hesp Towers is now rodent-free – although it does smell a bit like a classic apple strudel. Which is certainly a lot better than the sickly mushroom scent of black mould.

But what a strange world we live in... Certainly my understanding of it is poorer than it’s ever been. For example, last Sunday I drove to my son’s house in Hertfordshire – the M5 and M4 motorways were incredibly busy, which surprised me on a Sunday – but the M25 was mayhem. And this was a few days after the Just Stop Oil protestors had ceased their actions on that horrid motorway, so they weren’t to blame for all five lanes heading north being chock-ablock. Where were all these people going? This traffic, late on a Sunday afternoon, couldn’t be filled with folk going home from work. There’d be some like me visiting relatives, but there were no major sports meetings in the area or any other kind of large event. So this mass-movement of people intrigued me.

I was later told that 95% of them would have been bowing to the modern religion nowadays practiced on the Sabbath, known as shopping – which makes you wonder about words like poverty or hardship that have been bandied around so many times this week. This is what I don’t get… It seems all our futures are bound up in this magical thing called “growth” – but this only happens if millions of consumers keep doing plenty of consuming. If, for some reason, a great many of us suddenly become poor, then we can’t consume – which means growth can’t happen and we all get even poorer. Which means all our futures are dependent on shopping. Which is scary for anyone who’s hard-up – and very bad for the planet as consumerism requires more and more of the Earth’s diminishing resources.

There might come a time when we’ll require a major rethink – a time, perhaps, when today’s nostalgia for yesteryear provides a blueprint for the future.

Might there be a time when our nostalgia for yesteryear provides a blueprint for the future?