Category Archives: On my mind . . .

by

Have PhD, will travel . . . for half a century

Friday 12 December 1975. Fifty years ago today!

Harold Wilson had almost reached the end of his second term as Prime Minister. Queen were No. 1 in the UK chart with Bohemian Rhapsody, and would remain there for several weeks.

And, at The University of Birmingham, as the clock on Old Joe (actually the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower) struck 12 noon, so the Chancellor’s Procession made its way (to a musical accompaniment played by the University Organist) from the rear of the Great Hall to the stage.

Thus began a degree congregation (aka commencement in US parlance) to confer graduate and undergraduate degrees in the physical sciences (excluding physics and chemistry), biological and medical sciences, and in medicine and dentistry. All the graduands and their guests remained seated.

And I was among those graduands, about to have my PhD conferred by the Chancellor and renowned naturalist Sir Peter Scott (right).

Here are some photos taken during the ceremony as I received my degree, in the procession leaving the Great Hall, and with my parents afterwards.

I’d completed my thesis on the biosystematics of South American potatoes, The Evolutionary Significance of the Triploid Cultivated Potato, Solanum x chaucha Juz. et Buk., at the end of September, just meeting the deadline to have the degree conferred (subject to a successful examination) at the December congregation.

Native potato varieties from the Andes of South America.

My thesis defence (an oral examination or viva voce to give its complete title) was held around the third week of October if my memory serves me right. Fortunately I didn’t have to make any significant corrections to the text, and the examiners’ reports were duly submitted and the degree confirmed by the university [1].

Among the university staff who attended the degree congregation were Professor JG ‘Jack’ Hawkes, Mason Professor of Botany and head of the Department of Botany (later Plant Biology) in the School of Biological Sciences, and Dr J Trevor Williams, Course Tutor for the MSc degree course Conservation and Utilisation of Plant Genetic Resources in the same department.

Jack was a world-renowned expert on the taxonomy of potatoes and a pioneer in the field of genetic resources conservation, who founded the MSc course in 1969. He supervised my PhD research. Trevor had supervised my MSc dissertation on lentils, Studies in the Genus Lens Miller with Special Reference to Lens culinaris Medik., in 1971 when I first came to Birmingham to join the plant genetic resources course.

Here I am with Jack (on my right) and Trevor just after the congregation. Click on the image to view an abridged version of the congregation program.

At the same congregation several other graduates from the Department of Botany received their MSc degrees in genetic resources or PhD.

L-R: Pamela Haigh, Brenig Garrett, me, Trevor Williams, Jack Hawkes, Jean Hanson, Margaret Yarwood, Jane Toll, and Stephen Smith

When I began my MSc studies in genetic resources conservation and use at Birmingham in September 1970 I had no clear idea how to forge a career in this fascinating field. The other four students in my cohort came from positions in their own countries, to which they would return after graduating.

My future was much less certain, until one day in February 1971 when Jack Hawkes returned to Birmingham from an expedition to collect wild potatoes in Bolivia. He told me about a one-year vacancy from September that same year at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Lima, Peru, and asked if I’d be interested. Not half! And as the saying goes, The rest is history.

Jack’s expedition had been supported, in part, by CIP’s Director General, Dr Richard Sawyer, who told Jack that he wanted to send a young Peruvian scientist, Zósimo Huaman, to attend the MSc course at Birmingham from September 1971. He was looking for someone to fill that vacancy and did he know of anyone who fitted the bill. Knowing of my interest of working in South America if the opportunity arose, Jack told Sawyer about me. I met him some months later in Birmingham.

Well, things didn’t proceed smoothly, even though Zósimo came to Birmingham as scheduled. Because of funding delays at the UK’s Overseas Development Administration, ODA (which became the Department for International Development or DfID before it was absorbed into the Foreign Office), I wasn’t able to join CIP until January 1973.

In the interim, Jack persuaded ODA to support me at Birmingham until I could move to CIP, and he registered me for a PhD program. He just told me: I think we should work on the triploids. And I was left to my own devices to figure out just what that might mean, searching the literature, growing some plants at Birmingham to get a feel for potatoes, even making a stab (rather unsuccessfully) at learning Spanish.

Despite his relaxed view about what my PhD research might encompass, Jack was incredibly supportive, and we spent time in the field together on both occasions he visited CIP while I was there.

With Jack Hawkes in the CIP potato germplasm collection field, in Huancayo, central Peru (alt. 3100 masl) in January 1974.

I was also extremely fortunate that I had, as my local supervisor at CIP, the head of the Department of Breeding & Genetics, Dr P Roger Rowe, originally a maize geneticist, who joined CIP in mid-1973 from the USDA potato collection in Wisconsin where he was the curator. Roger and I have remained friends ever since, and Steph and I met him and his wife Norma in 2023 during our annual visit to the USA (where our elder daughter lives).

Roger and Norma Rowe, Steph and me beside the mighty Mississippi in La Crosse, Wisconsin in June 2023.

On joining CIP, Roger thoroughly evaluated—and approved—my research plans, while I also had some general responsibilities to collect potatoes in Peru, which I have written about in these two posts.

My research involved frequent trips between December and May each year to the CIP field station in Huancayo, to complete a crossing program between potato varieties with different chromosome numbers and evaluating their progeny. In CIP headquarters labs in Lima, I set about describing and classifying different potato varieties, and comparing them using a number of morphological and biochemical criteria. And I made field studies to understand how farmers grow their mixed fields of potato varieties in different regions of Peru.

With eminent Peruvian potato taxonomist, Carlos Ochoa
Solanum x chaucha varoeties, and pollinating potatoes in Huancayo.
Collecting potatoes in the south of Peru.
Off to farmers’ fields.
Collecting potatoes in Cajamarca, northern Peru in May 1974.
Collecting potato flower buds for chromosome counts, from a farmer’s field near Cuzco, in February 1974.
Sampling potato flower buds for chromosome studies, near Cuzco, 1974
Harvest time in Cajamarca.
Hydroponic potatoes on Lake Titicaca..

At the beginning of April 1975, Steph and I returned to Birmingham so that I could write my thesis. But we didn’t fly directly home. Richard Sawyer had promised me a postdoctoral position with CIP—subject to successful completion of my PhD—with a posting in the Outreach Program (then to become the Regional Research and Training Program) based in Central America. So we spent time visiting Costa Rica and Mexico before heading for New York and a flight back to Manchester. And all the while keeping a very close eye on my briefcase that contained all my raw research data. Had that gone astray I’m not sure what I would have done. No such thing in 1975 as personal computers, cloud storage and the like. So, you can imagine my relief when we eventually settled into life again in Birmingham, and I could get on with the task in hand: writing my thesis and submitting it before the 1 October deadline.

I still had some small activities to complete, and I didn’t start drafting my thesis in earnest until July. It took me just six weeks to write, and then I spent time during September preparing all the figures. Jack’s technician, Dave Langley, typed my thesis on a manual typewriter!

Of course each chapter had to be approved by Jack. And he insisted that I handed over each chapter complete, with the promise that he’d read it that same evening and return the draft to me with corrections and suggestions by the next day, or a couple of days at most. That was a supervision model I took on board when I became a university lecturer in 1981 and had graduate students of my own.

Looking back, my thesis was no great shakes. It was, I believe, a competent piece of research that met the university criteria for the award of a PhD: that it should comprise original research carried out under supervision, and of a publishable standard.

I did publish three papers from my thesis, which have been cited consistently in the scientific literature over the years by other researchers.

So, PhD under my belt so-to-speak, Steph and I returned to Lima just before New Year 1976. Later in April that year, we moved to Costa Rica where I did research on a serious bacterial disease of potatoes, seed potato production, and co-founded a pioneer regional cooperative program on potato research and development. We remained in Costa Rica for almost five years before returning to Lima, and from there to The University of Birmingham.

I taught at Birmingham for a decade before becoming Head of the Genetic Resources Center (with the world’s largest and most important rice genebank) at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Philippines from July 1991. Then in May 2001, I gave up any direct involvement in research and joined IRRI’s senior management team as Director for Program Planning and Communications. I retired in 2010 and returned to the UK.

50 years later

Since retiring, I’ve co-edited—in 2013—a major text on climate change and genetic resources, and led an important review, in 2016-2017, of the management of a network of international genebanks.

Without a PhD none of this would have been possible. Indeed continued employment at CIP in 1976 was contingent upon successful completion of my PhD.

I was extremely fortunate that, as a graduate student (from MSc to PhD) I had excellent mentors: Trevor, Jack, and Roger. I learned much from them and throughout my career tried (successfully I hope) to emulate their approach with my colleagues, staff who reported to me, and students. I’ve also held to the idea that one is never too old to have mentors.

[1] I completed my PhD in four years (September 1971 to September 1975. Back in the day, PhD candidates were allowed eight years from first registration to carry out their research and submit their thesis for examination. Because of concern about submission rates among PhD students in the 1980s, The University of Birmingham (and other universities) reduced the time limit to five years then to four. So nowadays, a PhD program in the UK comprises three years of research plus one year to write and submit the thesis, to be counted as an on-time submission.

 

by

The first of everything . . . November 2025

This post is a blogging departure for me, unlike any of the posts I’ve written over the past 13 years. It’s one that will take a year to complete, until New Year’s Day 2026. A record for the whole year, each month I’ll be writing about the places that Steph and I have visited, the excursions we’ve made, and including lots of photos.

November
This was a quiet month, excursion-wise. November started very mild, with some glorious sunny days, such that we headed north (on the 8th) to one of our favorite locations: Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre, just behind the beach at Druridge Bay, south of Amble.

It was a good bird-watching day, with lots of geese and ducks on the water. And a surprise as well. A blackcap (below), normally a summer visitor but a species that is increasingly staying resident in the UK the whole year round.

Then the weather really deteriorated, becoming windy and very wet. By 20 November, the temperature had really fallen and we had two days of frost and snow, quite unusual for November. But at least here in the northeast we were spared the torrential and devastating rains that blighted parts further south, especially in Wales.

Finally, on the last day of the month, and having been ‘trapped’ indoors for several days, the skies cleared and we headed to Seaton Sluice for a bracing walk along the beach.

Oh, and I celebrated my 77th birthday on the 18th, Steph cooking my favorite meal: homemade steak and kidney pie.

October
It has been incredibly mild, with just one slight frost at the end of the month. What’s also remarkable is the number of plants that are still flowering in our garden, including hollyhocks, antirrhinums, and calendulas. Even the odd strawberry plant. And this fine weather has allowed us to take some nice walks locally. Finally the trees are beginning to show some autumn color, like these birches along one of my favorite waggonway walks a couple of days ago.

At the beginning of October (from the 6th) we made a four-day trip to Scotland to visit my sister Margaret who lives west of Dunfermline in Fife, stopping off on the way north at a small fishing community, St Abbs, just north of the border with Scotland. I wrote about that trip in this post.

The harbour at St Abbs.

We visited Stirling Castle (managed by Historic Environment Scotland (HES) – the Scottish equivalent of English Heritage) enjoying the splendour of castle that has stood on a volcanic crag since the 14th century, but became a renaissance palace during the 16th century under James V of Scotland, father of Mary, Queen of Scots.

With my sister Margaret, looking north towards the Wallace Monument and the Ochil Hills from Stirling Castle.

HES has undertaken some impressive refurbishment of the royal palace there. Here is a small selection of some of the sights there.

King Robert I (aka The Bruce)
The Inner Gate built in 1708 on the orders of Queen Anne
The gatehouse leading to the Outer Court
The Royal Palace from Queen Anne Garden
The Great Hall from the Outer Court
The Royal Palace from the Outer Court
The Chapel Royal built in 1594
The Queen’s Outer Hall
Ceiling of the Queen’s Inner Hall
The Queen’s Inner Chamber with the Unicorn Tapestry above the fireplace
The Queen’s Bedchamber
The King’s Bedchamber
A triptych in the Queen’s Bedchamber
The ceiling of the King’s Bedchamber
The Stirling heads on the ceiling of the King’s Inner Hall
The Great Hall from the Inner Court
Inside the Chapel Royal
The hammerbeam roof of the Great Hall
The North Gate, the oldest part of the castle, built in 1381

After lunch, we headed a few miles southwest from Stirling to visit a landscape feature we’ve passed by at high speed on the M9 motorway on a couple of previous occasions. The Kelpies, mythical water horses, 30 m (100 foot) tall horses heads. Very impressive indeed!

On the Wednesday, we headed south to the north Northumberland town of Woolmer, nestling under the Cheviot Hills. We had gift vouchers (from last Christmas) for a tour and whisky tasting at the recently opened (2022) Ad Gefrin distillery and museum, named after an important Anglo-Saxon settlement and royal palace a few miles to the northwest.

Since I wanted to enjoy the whisky tasting, we parked in the town close to the guest house where we spent the night. Next morning – after an excellent full English breakfast – we headed to the site of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, and then crossed over the border again to make a quick visit to ruined Cessford Castle (ancestral home of the Ker family who became the Dukes of Roxburghe), before heading south again and crossing over into Northumberland at Carter Bar.

On 17 October we decided to take the Metro to Tynemouth and walk back to the Metro station at Cullercoats along Long Sands Beach, a little over 2 miles.

Then, just last Monday on the 27th, we headed out the Rising Sun Country Park which is quite close to home, and the reclaimed site of several collieries. What a glorious day, and just right to enjoy a cup of coffee and soaking up the Vitamin D.

Then it was Halloween, and although I don’t have any photos of all the children in their lovely costumes, we did hand out quite a large amount of candy. I guess there was a sugar rush in the houses round-about last night.

4 pm
6:15 pm

September
In some ways, September was a rather quiet month, despite having a week-long break in Somerset from the 5th.

We had booked a cottage in a small community a couple of miles south of Shepton Mallet in central Somerset, with the aim of visiting around a dozen National Trust and English Heritage properties in Somerset and west Wiltshire over the week.

We set out on the Friday morning, heading to Dunham Massey, a large estate owned by the National Trust on the west side of Manchester, and a couple of miles from the Manchester Ship Canal (which we had to cross). Having spent the night in a Premier Inn on the south side of Stoke-on-Trent (not far from where I went to high school in the 1960s), we headed south the next day, stopping off at Dyrham Park, just north of Bath, a property we had visited once before on a day trip from our former home in Worcestershire.

Over the course of the week, our travels took us to three castles, three gardens, one abbey and another now converted to a luxurious manor house, and five impressive mansions.

Old Wardour Castle
Clevedon Court
Tyntesfield
Cleeve Abbey
Dunster
Montacute House
Tintinhull Garden
Lytes Cary Manor
Farleigh Hungerford Castle
The Courts Garden
Lacock
Stourhead
Old Sarum Castle
Dyrham Park
Dunham Massey

We also ticked off another location from our bucket list: Cheddar Gorge.

On the 21st (a Sunday), we headed west of Newcastle to the small village of Wylam to view the birthplace cottage of The Father of the Railways, George Stephenson. The cottage, owned by the National Trust, is open only on a few select weekends each year, and as the 200th anniversary of the birth of the railways took place the following weekend (on the 27th), we took advantage of the cottage opening and had booked tickets several months back.

And while the weather continued fine, we enjoyed a glorious walk along the Whitburn coast south of the River Tyne, from Souter Lighthouse towards Sunderland on 26 September. I was surprised to discover that this was our first visit here this year, as it’s one of our favorite places to visit. So after a welcome americano in the National Trust café we set off along the cliffs as far as Whitburn Beach and Finn’s Labyrinth.

In this drone video (from YouTube) you can see the complete walk we took from the Lighthouse to the beach.

August
Hannah and Michael, Callum and Zoë were still with us at the beginning of the month. On the 1st, we had an enjoyable trip north to Druridge Bay, with all the grandchildren, and dogs as well. It was rather overcast, and a fair breeze, but with miles of beach to enjoy, I think everyone had a good time.

Hannah and family returned to the USA on 6 August, and since Philippa and her family had already left for their camping holiday in France, we had the doggies (Noodle and Rex) for the day.

At the site of the former Fenwick Colliery, close to home

We had great walks along Cambois beach on 8 and 12 August, the second time with Rex and Noodle again.

On 13 August, a very hot day, we decided to visit Derwent Walk Country Park, west of Newcastle, and close to the National Trust’s Gibside. Here in the northeast, local government have converted industrial waste sites to country parks and other recreational facilities. The Derwent Walk stretches for miles along the River Derwent, a tributary of the Rive Tyne, joining the latter west of Newcastle.

Never ones to miss out on a freebie, we spent the morning of 15 August picking blackberries close to home, and have enough to keep us in apple and blackberry crumble for the next 12 months!

Since then we have been very quiet, with just one walk along the promenade at Whitley Bay on the 17th, and (almost) daily walks close to home.

I spent many hours in the last week of the month planning visits (and routes) to National Trust and English Heritage properties in Somerset where we’ll spend a week from 6 September.

July
The first half of the month was generally rather quiet. I think we were still in post-USA mode. But with the good weather, I did get out and about on the local waggonways and another of my ‘Metro walks’ – this time from Four Lane Ends to Ilford Road. With the heatwaves that we’ve experienced recently, the vegetation everywhere was looking more like late summer than mid-July.

However, we did make one excursion on 11 July, taking in the birthplaces of father of the railways, George Stephenson (right), in Wylam (which we didn’t tour – it’s open in September and we have tickets then), and Thomas Bewick (renowned wood engraver) at Cherryburn, both owned by the National Trust. Then we stopped by the confluence of the North and South Tyne Rivers near Acomb in Northumberland, before making a second visit to St Oswald’s in Lee church at Heavenfield.

George Stephenson’s cottage
‘Cherryburn’
Tyne waters meet
Heavenfield panorama

On the 17th, we enjoyed an afternoon walk on the beach at Seaton Sluice.

Then, on 26 July, our elder daughter Hannah and her family (husband Michael, and Callum and Zoë) arrived from Minnesota after spending a few days in London prior to their travel north to Newcastle. And we’ve been out and about almost every day since, taking in Seaham in County Durham searching for sea glass (on the 28th), Belsay Hall, Winter’s Gibbet, and Elsdon Castle on the 29th, and the National Trust’s Allen Banks west of Newcastle (that we visited last April) on the 30th.

The ‘hidden face’ at Belsay
Winter’s Gibbet
With the grandchildren at Allen Banks
Searching for sea glass
Elsdon Castle

 

June
1 June. Not long after breakfast, Hannah drop me off at MSP (less than 10 minutes from her home) so I could collect our hire car for the next four days, for the trip south into north-eastern Iowa.

We set off just after 13:30, and took a leisurely drive to Decorah in Iowa where we’d spend the next two nights, for our visit to Seed Savers Exchange the next day.

Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) is a wonderful community of gardeners and horticulturalists who collect and preserve heirloom varieties of vegetables, fruits, and some flowers. I had contacted SSE in February about a possible ‘behind-the scenes’ tour of their facilities. And as it turned out we were treated to a six hour visit, which I have described in detail in this post.

Steph with Director for Preservation, Michael Washburn, who arranged our visit.

We enjoyed looking round Decorah (in Iowa’s part of the Bluff Country). It’s the county seat of Winneshiek County. We were impressed by the various murals that can be seen around the town. The sun was quite hazy that first evening, caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires drifting south.

The following day we headed west to Cresco to visit the birthplace and boyhood farms of Dr Norman Borlaug (right), who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his research leading to the development of high-yielding varieties of wheat, making several countries self-sufficient in that grain, but also saving millions from the dire prospect of famine. You can read all about Dr Borlaug’s life and career, and our visit to the farm hosted by two members of the Norman Borlaug Heritage Foundation.

One the last day, as we headed back to the Twin Cities, we stopped off at Nerstrand Big Woods State Park in Minnesota (about 60 miles south of the TC), and enjoyed a peaceful 3 mile walk through the park, visiting the Hidden Falls, and having a picnic lunch before hitting the road again.

After our return to St Paul, we spent the rest of our time there chilling out, walking along the Mississippi, dining out with the family. And we did enjoy an afternoon of mini-golf on the roof of Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center, and looking at some of the sculptures in the Garden. It was so hot!

Then it was time to pack up and fly back to the UK on 17 June. Looking back on our 3 weeks plus in the USA, we had a great time, despite all the dire warnings about what is happening there right now. We had no issues at immigration, nor on departure. Everyone we met was friendly, but perhaps that’s just the Mid-West culture. But it’s so sad to hear how the Trump administration is dismantling the very fabric of democracy, and it’s scary how the Supreme Court is supporting him.

We arrived back the following day to a heat wave, and decided to barbecue the next. Since then we’ve been getting over jet-lag, but have managed a coupe of short excursions.

On the 25th we took one of our favorite walks from Whitley Bay to St Mary’s Lighthouse. It’s always nice to walk beside the sea.

Then, on the last day of the month, and one of the hottest of the year, we once again visited the Penshaw Monument (about 11 miles south of where we live) and Herrington Country Park.

May
What a busy month May has been. With good weather over several days during the first half of the month, we managed three excursions, before departing to Minnesota for almost a month on 21 May, flying from Newcastle International Airport (NCL) to Minneapolis-St Paul (MSP) via Schipol (AMS).

Om 3 May, I continued my exploration of the Tyne and Wear Metro, walking between Four Lane Ends and Chillingham Road ( just under 4 miles), taking the train from Northumberland Park to Four Lane Ends, then from Chillingham Road all the way east to Tynemouth before turning west again to arrive back at Northumberland Park. On 13 May, I explored the short distance between Four Lane Ends to Benton, before taking the metro back home.

On a couple of walks on nearby fields at the beginning of the month, I was lucky to observe kestrels, yellowhammers, and lapwings, all putting on impressive flight or vocal displays.

On 9 May, we returned to Kielder Forest in the west of Northumberland, making the Forest Drive east to west this time. What a beautiful part of the county.

We had never visited our local National Trust property Seaton Delaval Hall (just under 6 miles from home) in the Spring. But finally made it on 16 May.

Then on 17 May, we enjoyed a fine barbecue.

Our trip to Minnesota began at 06:30 when our taxi picked us up for the short ride to Newcastle airport. The airport was quiet and we were soon checked through and had a couple of hours to wait for our 09:30 flight on KLM to AMS. I had been concerned about the relative short connect ion time in AMS (just 1¼ hours). But we arrived on time, and our Delta flight to MSP departed from an E gate quite to close to where we had arrived on the D pier.

The Delta flight was not full, and we had a very comfortable flight, arriving on time in MSP at around 15:00. We were through immigration and baggage collection and out of the airport in around 20 minutes. Hannah was there to pick us up. And although jet-lagged, we did manage to stay awake to hear Callum (our eldest grandson) sing in a school concert that evening.

Apart from a short trip to Iowa from the beginning of June (which I will describe in next month’s update) we had no road trip plans during this year’s visit to the USA. So we stayed mostly around the neighbourhood where Hannah and Michael live, enjoying walks, chilling out with their two dogs, Bo and Gizmo, reading, and sampling many of the local beers.

It was interesting to see how much the Highland Bridge development and parks had progressed since 2024. This is the site of a former (and huge) Ford motor assembly plant. The City of St Paul has been very imaginative in its planning of the development (condos, town houses, commercial properties, healthcare, and landscaping – it’s incredible how much wildlife has already taken up residence).

We enjoyed a couple of hours exploring Excelsior and the shore of Lake Minnetonka west of the Twin Cities, while Hannah had brunch with a former work colleague. Lake Minnetonka is now one large lake formed by the merging into a single body of water of numerous kettle lakes after the last glaciation.

On Memorial Day (26 May) we took a walk from the Minneapolis side of the Mississippi back to Hannah’s stopping off the Longfellow Gardens and Minnehaha Park and Falls. We encountered a group of (mainly) old folks protesting against Trump. Well done!

Michael had been smoking several racks of pork ribs for about six hours, and his father Paul and partner Marsha joined us for a delightful evening meal on the patio.

On 30 May we made our annual ‘pilgrimage’ to Como Park in St Paul and the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory (where Hannah and Michael were married in 2006) to see what floral display the gardeners had designed for 2025. The visit to Como was completed with a stroll around the Japanese Garden, and to watch the glorious carousel nearby.

On the last day of the month we prepared for our trip south to Iowa the next day.

April
It has been one of the driest Aprils on record, so we’ve had lots of opportunities of getting out and about.

The month started, right on the 1st, with Steph and I receiving our Covid-19 Spring booster vaccinations. One of the advantages of being over 75 – we get offered these vaccinations twice a year. We believe in science, not the mad ravings of RFK, Jr!

The next day, we headed 75 miles south to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Gardens just beyond the small cathedral city of Ripon in North Yorkshire. We’ve been there twice before, in July 2013 and again at the end of March 2014. On both occasions it was heavily overcast and rather cold. Not so on this latest visit. We enjoyed a walk of almost 5 miles in the warm sunshine. The ruins of the abbey looked magnificent, likewise the water gardens.

Less than  a week later, we headed south once again, this time to Barnard Castle to explore the 11th century castle and then on to the ruins of Egglestone Abbey, just a couple of miles south of the town. Both owned by English Heritage.

The Great Ditch around the Middle and Inner Wards

We then came home via the road from Teesdale to Weardale.

I made another of my Metro walks the following day, from West Monkseaton to Monkseaton, and rode one of the new Stadler consists for the first time.

On the 11th, Steph and I headed to the coast to take a look at the newly-renovated St Mary’s Lighthouse. The last time we were there it was high tide so couldn’t cross to the island. As usual, there was a good number of grey seals basking on the rocks.

It wasn’t until the 22nd that we had another excursion, a return visit to Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre, where we saw many of the birds that were highlighted on the centre’s reporting board. Including a rare ruddy shelduck, probably an escape or a migrant that had lost its way.

Finally, on the last day of the month, and 15 years to the day since I retired from IRRI in the Philippines, we made a second visit to the National Trust’s Allen Banks and Staward Gorge, about 6 miles west of Hexham. Another glorious day, and we enjoyed a 4 mile return walk along the banks of the River Allen to Plankey Mill from the car park. We’d visited once before at the end of October 2022.

This recent walk was particularly pleasant as the woodlands were waking up in the Spring sunshine.

Internationally, this month saw the death of Pope Francis, and the dramatic election win for Mark Carney and the Liberal Party in Canada, overturning a predicted drubbing from the nation’s right wing Conservative Party. Donald Trump and his henchman continue to embarrass themselves, the USA, and democracy.

March
This has been a walking month, but with a difference. Having walked the waggonways and fields close to home over the past four years, I decided it was time to explore further afield. So, on several occasions, I have taken to the Metro and walked back home as I did at the beginning of the month from Palmersville (the next station west from our nearest at Northumberland Park) or traveling to other stations and taking a walk from there.

On the 9th,  Steph and I headed to Cullercoats, on the coast to walk back to Whitley Bay. Ethereal. There was a light fog rolling off the North Sea which added atmosphere to our walk. By the time we reached the Metro in Whitley Bay, the fog had lifted.

On the 20th, we headed west to Bolam Lake Country Park, making two full circuits of the lake by slightly different routes, enjoying a picnic, before taking a look at the nearby Anglo-Saxon Church of St Andrew’s.

We have explored the center of Newcastle on just a few occasions. However, on 24 March, I took the Metro to West Jesmond, and walked across the city center to St James’ Park (home of Newcastle United), stopping off near Northumbria University for a coffee with my elder daughter Philippa who is an Associate professor there.

Northumberland Park Metro station
West Jesmond Metro station
Jesmond parish church
Northumberland Street
Coffee date with Philippa
Salvaged sculptures beside Elsdon Square Shopping Centre
St James’ Park

Last Friday, 28 March Steph and I took the Metro to Ilford Road, and walked the length of Jesmond Dene, covering almost 5 miles by the time we returned home.

Jesmond Dene is a public park, occupying the steep valley of the River Ouseburn. It was created by William, Lord Armstrong (engineer and industrialist owner of Cragside in Rothbury, now in the hands of the National Trust) in the 1860s, and he gave the park to the people of Newcastle in 1883.

Although showery at times, it was a thoroughly enjoyable walk through the Dene, lots of birdlife (some of which I hadn’t seen for several years such as jays).

However, at the beginning of the month we visited the National Glass Centre in Sunderland for the second time, and took advantage of the visit to explore the nearby St Peter’s Church (with its Saxon tower) which had been closed when we traveled there in November 2022.

Here are some of the studio pieces on display in the Glass Zoo and Menagerie exhibitions.

St Peter’s is one half of the twin monasteries established by Benedict Biscop in the 7th century. The other half is at St Paul’s, Jarrow that we visited in August 2023.

Internationally, I guess the big story has been the powerful earthquake on 28 March in Myanmar, with its epicenter close to Mandalay. Even 1000 km south in Bangkok the effects of the earthquake were devastating. What has been particularly awful about this tragedy has been the request by the Myanmar military junta for international aid while continuing to bomb so-called rebels throughout the country. No humanity!

I am unable to fathom why Israel continues to bomb civilian targets in Gaza, killing recently more than 400 people including many women and children. And why the Israeli government tacitly permits settlers to attack Palestinian families on the West Bank. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined soldiers of the Israeli Defence Force for a meal in a Palestinian apartment which they had occupied. Obscene.

And don’t get me started on what the Trump Administration has been up to, almost on a daily basis, during March.

February
It’s been a rather quiet month on the home front. Why? The weather has been so foul – cold, wet, and overcast and certainly not the weather (mostly) for excursions. Apart from the 6th, when there was hardly a cloud in the sky so we headed off to National Trust Gibside, and enjoyed a 4 mile walk through the estate and along the River Derwent. Hoping to see a lot of birdlife, it was rather a disappointment apart from a solitary dipper feeding along the river, and a stately heron sunning itself a little further along.

On the 26th, our two grandsons Elvis and Felix spent the day with us during their half-term break. We originally had plans for a trip into the wilds of Northumberland, but the weather deteriorated, Elvis had hurt his ankle at a Parkour class the previous week, so all we could manage was a short hobble around the nearby lake.

But the following day, Spring arrived. I even resurrected my summer straw hat from the recesses of my wardrobe.

The highlight of the month however was the Transatlantic Sessions concert we attended at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead on 4 February. What an evening! Read all about it by clicking on the box below (and the other red boxes).

I commented about Donald Trump twice during the month. I’d promised myself many weeks ago, even before his inauguration of 20 January, that I would avoid writing anything. I couldn’t help myself.

So on 17 February I published this:

Then, Trump reposted this offensive AI-generated video about Gaza on his Truth Social at the end of the month:

Trump was publicly fact-checked by President Macron of France and prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of the UK.

On the 28th, I wrote this:

And just when you didn’t think he could sink any lower, Donald came up trumps later that same day, and he and his VP disgraced the Office of the President of the United States in the behaviour towards and treatment of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine in the Oval Office. I’ll just leave this video and let you make your own minds up. I’m appalled.

And this comes on top of Trump being invited to the UK this year or next for an unprecedented second State Visit. Although not a monarchist, I feel sorry for the King that he’s been put in this invidious position, welcoming a convicted felon and sexual abuser once more to the UK.

I also updated these two posts:

January
The weather was quite mixed during this month, with Storm Éowyn (see below) arriving on the 24th, and causing widespread disruption. Having slipped and broken my leg (back in 2016) when it was icy, I rarely venture out these days when there are similar conditions. But we managed a great walk at Cambois beach on 10 January, a rather disappointing bird-watching visit to Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre on the 15th, and last Thursday (30th), on a beautiful but sharp sunny day, we completed the River Walk at National Trust Wallington in Northumberland.

Cambois beach

Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre

Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre

Wallington

Here are some other news items:

  • 31 January: Donald Trump has been President for just eleven days, and already it feels like a lifetime.
  • 31 January: a Medevac Learjet 55 crashes into a Philadelphia suburb just after take-off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, killing all on board. This was the second fatal crash in two days in the USA.
  • 30 January: Singer and actress, and 60s icon, Marianne Faithfull (right) died, aged 78.
  • 29 January: American Airlines 5342 (from Wichita, Kansas) collided with an army helicopter as it was coming into land at Washington Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA), and plunged into the Potomac River, killing all 64 passengers and crew, and three soldiers in the helicopter. Donald Trump ‘speculates’ – because he has ‘common sense’ – about the causes of the accident and, to the outrage of many, blames the accident on the Obama and Biden administrations, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
  • 24 January: Storm Éowyn hit the UK and Ireland with winds in excess of 100 mph.
  • 20 January: the Orange moron, Donald J Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, and immediately disgraced himself in his speech.
  • 15 January: Gaza ceasefire agreed between Hamas and Israel, coming into force on the 19th when the first Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners exchanged.
  • 9 January: state funeral, in Washington DC for Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States. A president with an impressive legacy.
  • 7 January: catastrophic wildfires devastate huge areas of Los Angeles, leaving thousands homeless.
  • 7 January: 7.1 earthquake hits holy Shigatse city in Tibet, with as many as 400 people killed, and many more injured.
  • 6 January: Vice President Kamala Harris certifies the 2024 US presidential election results. Justin Trudeau resigns as Prime Minister of Canada. Widespread flooding in the UK.

I wrote these four posts:

New Year’s Day 2025
After a stormy few days, with expectations of worse to come today, we actually woke to a bright, fine morning, blue skies and only a moderate breeze.

Having been confined to indoors for the past couple of days, we decided to head off to Whitley Bay and take a stroll along the promenade, and check whether the sea was still churning after all the recent weather. As the car park was full, we then drove north by a couple of miles to Seaton Sluice, and enjoyed a short (1.07 miles) walk along the beach, collecting small pebbles and sea glass on the way. The temperature was around 7°C but felt much colder in the brisk breeze.

 

by

A brief trip to Scotland

Two weeks ago, Steph and I had a four-day minibreak to visit my sister Margaret who lives in a small community west of Dunfermline in Fife, Scotland on the north side of the Firth of Forth.

And we took advantage of that trip north to redeem—on the return journey—a couple of Christmas gift vouchers for a whisky distillery tour and tasting in the north Northumberland town of Wooler, then visiting several other localities along the Scottish border before returning home. The whole trip covered 376 miles.

On the Monday morning (6 October) we set off a little after 10 am, heading north on the A1. North of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the road runs close to the coast, and there are some lovely views over the North Sea, and further north still, views of the mouth of the Firth of Forth and Bass Rock, an important seabird colony particularly for gannets. We were very lucky with the weather more or less until we hit the Edinburgh By-Pass when it began to cloud over.

We broke the journey at St Abbs in the Scottish Borders, just 15 miles north of Berwick. We’d visited there once before. It’s an attractive small community with a harbour of fishing and dive boats. Dive boats? Yes, because the waters off St Abbs head nearby south to Eyemouth are a marine reserve, and attract many dry suit divers. But not for me, although I’m sure the diving could be spectacular. I learned to dive in the Philippines where the waters are considerably warmer.

Here is a short video of the drive down to St Abbs and views around the harbour and village.

We enjoyed a walk around the harbour, and had hoped to see something of the birdlife that the location is famous for. It was all quiet on the bird front – they must have all been hiding or out to sea.

After a spot of lunch, we headed back to the A1 and continued north to Comrie, arriving there about 15:30 just in time for a welcome cup of tea and a slice of lemon drizzle cake.

Our route took us around the Edinburgh By-Pass, and crossing the Firth of Forth on the ‘new’ Queensferry Crossing that carries the M90 motorway. The bridge opened to traffic on 30 August 2017. At 1.7 miles (2.7km) it is the longest 3-tower, cable-stayed bridge in the world, and replaced the Forth Road Bridge (which opened in 1964) and which now only carries buses, taxis, cyclists, and pedestrians. This link gives a potted history of these two bridges and the iconic rail bridge that opened in 1890.

The next day, Margaret, Steph and me headed 18 miles west to visit Stirling Castle, owned by Historic Environment Scotland, and as we are long-standing members of English Heritage, we had free entry. The castle is perched high on a volcanic crag with impressive 360º views across the city and hills to the north.

The castle reached its zenith, as a renaissance royal palace, in the 1500s and was the home of King James V (right), father of Mary, Queen of Scots. Her son, James VI of Scotland and I of England (who Elizabeth I named as her heir in 1603) acceded to the Scottish throne (aged 13 months) in 1567, and spent much of his youth in this castle. The oldest part of the castle (the North Tower) dates from the 14th century; there were additions in the 18th century when the castle became a military stronghold.

Being mid-week, we didn’t think there would be many visitors, so booked our tickets for an 11:30 entrance. The car park was almost full, with coach after coach disgorging tourists from all corners of the globe. Fortunately, parking (at £5) was well-organized, and we were not permitted to drive into the carpark itself until parking marshals could direct us to a free space.

There’s certainly plenty to see at Stirling Castle, and by the time we ‘retired’ to have lunch, I was quite overwhelmed by all the information that I had tried to absorb.

Outside the castle is an impressive statue of King Robert I, known as Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) whose particular claim to fame is his defeat of the forces of King Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. What I had never realised until this visit to Stirling Castle is that the site of the battle is just 2 miles south.

There’s so much to see inside the castle walls, from Queen Anne’s Garden with its view over the surrounding landscape, the Royal Palace that has been luxuriously refurbished and newly fabricated tapestries hung, the Chapel Royal (built in 1594 by James VI for the baptism of his first-born Henry), and the Great Hall, one of the largest and finest in Europe.

The Inner Gate built in 1708 on the orders of Queen Anne
The gatehouse leading to the Outer Court
The Royal Palace from Queen Anne Garden
The Royal Palace from the Outer Court
The Queen’s Outer Hall
Ceiling of the Queen’s Inner Hall
The Queen’s Inner Chamber with the Unicorn Tapestry above the fireplace
The Queen’s Bedchamber
A triptych in the Queen’s Bedchamber
The King’s Bedchamber
The ceiling of the King’s Bedchamber
The Stirling heads on the ceiling of the King’s Inner Hall
The Chapel Royal built in 1594
Inside the Chapel Royal
The Great Hall from the Outer Court
The Great Hall from the Inner Court
The hammerbeam roof of the Great Hall
The North Gate, the oldest part of the castle, built in 1381

A full set of photographs of our visit to Stirling Castle (and the other sites on our trip) can be viewed here.

By the time we left the castle around 14:00 the clouds had lifted and we could see all the way into the surrounding hills. So we headed to see an impressive landscape feature near Falkirk, just under 17 miles southeast of Stirling.

The Kelpies are to Falkirk what The Angel of the North is to Gateshead. So what are The Kelpies? Sitting beside the M9 motorway (from which we have glimpsed The Kelpies on previous occasions when passing by and always meaning to visit one day) and alongside the Forth and Clyde Canal, The Kelpies are large (very large) heads of mythical horses made from steel, standing 98 feet (or 30 m) high.

Designed by sculptor Andy Scott, they were completed in October 2013 and unveiled the following April to reflect the mythological transforming beasts possessing the strength and endurance of ten horses. The Kelpies represent the lineage of the heavy horse of Scottish industry and economy, pulling the wagons, ploughs, barges, and coal ships that shaped the geographical layout of the Falkirk area (Wikipedia). They are impressive indeed.

That’s Steph and my sister standing beside one of The Kelpies

Our original idea was to visit The Kelpies the following morning as we left my sister’s to head south towards Wooler. Thank goodness our plans changed as the following morning we met heavy congestion south of the Queensferry Crossing, and crawled in traffic for about 10 miles, extending our journey by almost an hour. Consequently, we arrived in Wooler just after 1 pm and only 45 minutes before our distillery tour was due to begin.

The Ad Gefrin distillery was opened in 2023, but has not yet released its own whisky, although its warehouse is full of barrels ready for release as single malts by the end of 2026 or early the next year. For the time being it is retailing two whiskies—Corengyst and Tácnbora, branded as ‘blended in Northumberland’— made from Scottish and Irish whiskies.

We enjoyed the whisky tasting, and since Steph does not like the beverage, we took her samples home which I sampled again last week.

The distillery takes its name from the 7th century Anglo-Saxon settlement and royal palace of Gefrin, a few miles northwest of Wooler near the community of Yeavering, surrounded by hills in the vale of the River Glen. There is a small museum dedicated to Gefrin at the distillery which we also had opportunity to view.

Then, next day after an excellent full English breakfast at the guesthouse where we stayed, we headed to Gefrin. And although there’s not a lot to see on the ground, there are several information boards explaining how the site was discovered in 1949 from aerial photographs, and subsequently excavated by Brian Hope-Taylor (right) between 1952 and 1962. Some of his interpretations remain problematical.

You can better appreciate the landscape around Gefrin in this video from about 3’30”.

We continued our journey west, crossing over the border back into Scotland near Morebattle before arriving at Cessford Castle, ancestral home of the Ker family (who became Dukes of Roxburghe) around 1450.

The castle is unsafe to enter, but one can still appreciate its walls, 13 feet thick. It’s so isolated in its landscape, surrounded by a ditch that can still be appreciated to this day. As we walked around the ruin, we kept our eyes on a flock of sheep grazing nearby that I came to realise were actually rams, warily scrutinizing us.

The route of St Cuthbert’s Way (from Holy Island on the Northumberland coast west to Melrose in the Scottish Borders) passes near the castle, and which we more or less followed for a while as we headed towards Jedburgh and the A68 that would take us over the border at Carter Bar back into England.

Carter Bar, at 1371 feet or 418 m, is the highest point on the pass in the Cheviot Hills, before crossing over into Redesdale on the England side. On a good day there must be a better view north into Scotland since we experienced low cloud cover. Nevertheless we still could appreciate the beauty of this location.

It has a long history in the relations between England and Scotland, and the Romans were here in the 1st century CE. Just a few miles away is Dere Street, a Roman road that we have encountered before at Chew Green, a Roman encampment close to the border but further south.

Then it was downhill all the way to North Tyneside, and it wasn’t far beyond Carter Bar that we were once again on familiar territory.

We must have been home by about 3 pm or so, just avoiding a major holdup less than a mile south from where we left the A19. A construction company had ruptured a mains water pipe and the road was flooded for several hours. I read that the diversions and traffic disruption were epic!

 

 

by

From Wylam, Northumberland . . . to the world

Rail transport was one of the most important technological advances of the 19th century, a key component of the so-called Industrial Revolution (approximately 1760-1840) that marked a transformative period characterized by mechanization, urbanization, and significant social changes.

And today, 27 September 2025, is the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first public railway to use steam locomotives, and which is considered the beginning of the Railway Age. One man, George Stephenson (right, 1781-1848), is inextricably linked with the birth of the railways, having surveyed the Stockton and Darlington line and constructed (with his son Robert, 1803-1859) the first locomotive, Locomotion No.1, to haul passengers. But they built upon the ingenuity of great engineers before them, like the pioneering Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick who actually developed the world’s first steam locomotive in 1804.

For this, and other inventions and innovations such as surveying lines, the standard gauge (at 4 feet 8½ inches) that was more or less adopted worldwide, and design of steam locos, George Stephenson is often referred to as the Father of the Railways, and rightly so. Although perhaps that’s an accolade that should be shared with son Robert (right).

Steam locomotives and the birth of the railways are part of the proud historic and heritage fabric of the northeast of England where the history of the railways is synonymous with the expansion of the coal mines. Coal had been transported since the late 17th century from the pits along waggonways to wharves or staiths along the River Tyne where it could be loaded on boats for export, most often to London.

Waggons were initially hauled by horses on rails made from wood. Later, stationary steam engines were built to pull the waggons, and wooden rails were replaced by cast iron ones. The design and development of steam locomotives to bring coal from the pits to the River Tyne was the driving force that brought about the birth of the railways. It was a major step forward, and dramatically reduced the cost of coal.

While working at Killingworth Colliery, northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne, Stephenson had a workshop where he constructed his first steam locomotive, Blücher in 1814, establishing his reputation as an engineer. Remarkable for a man who was illiterate until the age of 18.

And while Locomotion No 1 was a major step forward in the development of the railways in 1825, it was Rocket built by George and son Robert in 1829 for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (which opened on 15 September 1830) that included design innovations (explained in the video below) seen in steam engines over the next century and a half. Although Stephenson did not design flanged wheels (that was done by William Jessop in 1788), he did use them on Rocket, a significant advance in railway technology.

Just imagine how sophisticated some steam locomotives became. Take Union Pacific Big Boy, a 4-8-8-4 locomotive in the USA, the world’s largest and most powerful locomotive ever built. What a beauty!

It’s also remarkable just how quickly railways expanded in and after the 1840s in the UK and around the world. By 1870, the network in the UK comprised around 16,000 miles of track. A year earlier, in May 1869, the the transcontinental rail line in the USA was completed, when the two construction companies met in Utah, north of Salt Lake City. The rail network had been important during the American Civil War (1861-1865) for the movement of troops and materiel, perhaps the first time that railways had taken on such a significant role.

For most railway buffs, I guess there’s no finer sight than a steam locomotive at top speed. Poetry in motion! Today, that’s something you’ll only ever witness here in the UK when special excursions are run on the mainline. And that speed capability came about because of the design innovations in Rocket, and subsequent improvements that engineers made, of course.

The last standard gauge mainline service in this country ran on 11 August 1968 from Liverpool to Carlisle. The focus thereafter was on diesel power and the expansion of electrification.

However, steam locomotives can still be seen in action on the many heritage lines around the UK such as the Severn Valley Railway, a 16-mile line between Kidderminster and Bridgnorth close to our former home in Worcestershire which we rode in 2008. However, trains on heritage lines are restricted to a 25 mph speed limit.

The days of steam power on the railways were always numbered, even as soon as 60 years after the opening of the first steam-only railway. Steam locos were already being replaced in some cities as early as the 1880s, and Switzerland for example, had achieved 50% electrification of its network by 1928.

George Stephenson was born in a cottage, known formerly as High Street House, in the colliery village of Wylam in Northumberland, which is about nine miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne, beside the River Tyne.

George Stephenson’s birthplace in Wylam, Northumberland.

His father Robert was a fireman for the Wylam Colliery pumping engine and, being poor, could not pay for George’s education. It’s remarkable, therefore, that George achieved so much, and having become wealthy through his own engineering prowess, ensured that his son Robert benefitted from a better education, and becoming one of the greatest engineers of the Victorian Age.

A week ago (on 21 September) Steph and I had the opportunity of visiting George Stephenson’s birthplace, which is owned by the National Trust and opened on a limited ticketed basis on just a few days each year.

Father Robert, his wife Mabel, and their five children occupied just one ground floor room (to the left of the front door) in this cottage, each of the other rooms also housing a single family. Can you imagine a family of seven living in one room, just 12 x 12 feet approximately? He lived there until he was eight.

The Wylam waggonway ran by the front door, so young George would have, from an early age, seen just what rail systems could achieve.

Then, during the tour of the cottage, and in subsequent reading, I discovered that George Stephenson lived, from 1805 to 1823 (after he had become engineer at Killingworth Colliery) in a cottage (known as Dial Cottage for the dial that he and son Robert made and placed over the front door) just 1.80 miles as the crow flies from our home in North Tyneside.

From such humble origins to fame and fortune, and perhaps even greater for son Robert who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Neither accepted a knighthood.

And one final point. George Stephenson invented a mining safety lamp, the Geordie lamp, resulting in a lifelong controversy with Cornish aristocratic chemist Humphry Davy who accused Stephenson of stealing his design for a similar device.

By the mid-1860s, natives of Newcastle became known as Geordies, and it’s commonly believed that the name of the lamp attached to the pit men who worked in the numerous mines across Tyneside.

 

 

by

It ended 160 years ago . . .

I’m not sure why or precisely when I developed an interest in the American Civil War. A devastating war (the bloodiest in American history¹), a continent away, with which we had no family connections that I’m aware of, although any on the Irish side of my family who emigrated to the United States in the 1840s and subsequently (as a consequence of the Irish Potato Famine) may well have become involved in the fighting. I just don’t know.

In my early teens, I saw an exhibition of photographs of the Civil War by celebrated American photographer Matthew Brady (right, taken in 1875). Perhaps he was the first photojournalist. And while there are images from earlier wars (such as the Crimean War, from October 1853 to March 1856), I guess the American Civil War was the first to be documented so extensively in this medium.

These are just a few archival images that illustrate the National Geographic’s The Untold Civil War, by James Robertson, published in 2011.

Also, another aspect that caught my attention was the role that the railways played in moving troops and materiel in the various theaters where the war was contested. Again, this was probably a first in terms of the extensive and critical role of railways in any conflict. And the wireless of course, which permitted ‘rapid’ communications about the state of the conflict, provided the lines hadn’t been cut. Like the railways, the lines were frequently targeted.

A war that ended 160 years ago, but started on 12 April 1861 when Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter (in South Carolina), and which ended to all intents and purposes almost exactly four years later on 9 April 1865 when Confederate General Robert E Lee (right below) surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S Grant (left) at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.

On 18 December 1865, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was proclaimed, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, once and for all. And with it the root cause for secession and war four years earlier. But, as we know, the abolition of slavery and emancipation of slaves did not correct the ingrained racism that did not die away and continues to this day, despite legislation conferring civil rights and the like.

Over the past decade I purchased (from Half Price Books in St Paul) several books² (accounts and biographies) about the war, while visiting family in Minnesota.

And it was one of these, April 1865: The Month that Saved America (first published in 2001) by acclaimed author and historian Jay Winik that I decided to read for a second time, and took it with me on our latest trip to Minnesota in May.

Winik highlights three events that all occurred within a fortnight. First there was the evacuation and fall of the Confederate capital of Richmond between 2-4 April.

Second, with the writing on the wall, Lee surrendered to Grant on 9 April in the McLean house at Appomattox Courthouse.

Lee signs the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, witnessed by Ulysses S Grant and his officers.

The surrender terms were quite favourable to the Confederates, but there was a lingering fear that undefeated troops would take to the mountains and wage guerrilla war for decades. However, Confederate General Joseph E Johnston surrendered his large army to William Tecumseh Sherman at Bennett Place in North Carolina on 26 April. Fighting overall in the Civil War came to an end by the end of May 1865.

And third, was the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on 14 April (he actually died the following day). This had major ramifications for the post-bellum rapprochement that Linclon had long envisaged, and with the ascendancy of his Vice President Andrew Johnson to the highest office, there was no certainty that a lasting peace would prevail.

Not all reviewers agree with Winik’s interpretation that April 1865 was so crucial. Events earlier in the same year, and perhaps since the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg in 1863 meant that the Confederacy was always destined to fail.

But April 1865 is an easy read. One aspect that I really appreciated were the vignettes of the main protagonists that Winik interspersed with the main chronology of events. It’s remarkable that the Confederates were as successful on the battlefield over the course of the war, albeit their cause ultimately ending in failure, given the jealousies between many of their general officers. I guess most soldiers who reach general rank must have pretty big egos.

Over the course of our road trips across the USA, Steph and I have taken the opportunity of visiting several historical sites connecting with the Civil War.

In 2017, we drove from Georgia to Minnesota, taking in Savannah (the destination of Sherman’s March to the Sea in November and December 1864, and through the Appalachians, and crossing (as we did in 2019) much of the region in Virginia and West Virginia in particular where many of the battles were fought.

In 2019, on a trip that took in many northeast and Atlantic states, we visited both the Gettysburg battlefield site and Appomattox Court House.

Virginia Monument (General Robert E Lee on horseback)
Acoss the battlefield
The McLean House at Appomattox Courthouse
Lee signs the surrender
Inside the surrender room
The courthouse

In 2018, travelling from Maine to Minnesota, we passed through Ohio, the birthplace of two of the most famous generals of the Civil War: Grant (in Point Pleasant) and Sherman (in Lancaster); and the boyhood home—in Somerset—of Philip Sheridan (who was born in Albany, NY, but grew up in Ohio).

The mural of Sherman on the wall of the Glass Museum in Lancaster that I illustrated in that post is no longer there. It has been whitewashed over!

I’ve just completed an abridged biography (see below, down from four volumes) of General Lee. Rather tough going, I must say, with so much miniscule detail rather than a broader horizon to explore.

¹Over 620,000 killed. In fact, more soldiers died from post combat infection of wounds or from diseases like dysentery and measles that spread like wildfire through camps. See this link for a breakdown of the statistics.

² Here are the books about the Civil War that I have read:

by

Can it be 55 years already?

On this day, 55 years ago, I received my BSc degree in Environmental Botany and Geography from the University of Southampton, at a degree congregation (aka commencement) held in Southampton’s Guildhall (now the O2 Guildhall) in the city center.

How the years have flown by, after what I can only describe as an inauspicious start. Because instead of the hoped-for 2:i degree, I missed out by a whisker. I’m not sure which hurt more: missing out, or being told by my tutor that I’d missed out by just 1%.

Anyway, I left Southampton not sure what my future would hold. I hadn’t attempted to find any meaningful employment, and I’d had no intention of going into teaching as a ‘last resort’.

What I did have, however, was a firm offer of a place on a newly-established MSc course on Conservation and Utilisation of Plant Genetic Resources in the Department of Botany at the University of Birmingham. The only problem was that there was no funding to support my participation, either for the academic fees or maintenance. And I certainly didn’t have the financial resources to cover those costs.

In February 1970, I’d been invited for interview at Birmingham by Professor Jack Hawkes, who was Mason Professor of Botany, head of department, and Course Director for the MSc course. I had an interesting interview with Hawkes and senior lecturer in plant ecology, Dr Dennis Wilkins. Little imagining that they would be colleagues a decade later.

In any case, everything turned out for the best. I guess it must have been in early August that I received a phone call from Professor Hawkes with the good news that the university had approved a small grant that would cover fees and maintenance (at £5 per week, approximately). So I set about looking for somewhere to live in Birmingham, ordering several key books, and preparing for an intense year of study.

And the rest is history, so to speak.

I redeemed myself academically during the MSc course. I studied hard and effectively, something that clearly had not been my forte at Southampton.

I began a PhD research project on potatoes under Hawkes’ supervision, and moved to Peru in January 1973 to begin a career in international agricultural research at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Lima.

Before I retired in April 2010, I’d worked in three countries overseas: with CIP in Peru (1973-1976), Costa Rica (1976-1981), and at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines (1991-2010), as well as spending a decade in academia as a lecturer in plant biology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Birmingham.

Having had a somewhat chequered undergraduate career (having burnt the candle at one end more than the other), I was sympathetic towards undergraduate students, tutees in particular, who began their studies and even struggled from time-to-time. I knew where they were coming from, and was able to provide (I believe) sound counsel about how to move forward. Having learnt from my own mistakes (shortcomings even) I think I was able to provide useful insights into how to study effectively and take full advantage of life as an undergraduate student.

In my career I’ve been fortunate to travel widely around the world, held senior positions in agricultural research institutes (at IRRI), published widely, supervised some excellent PhD and MSc students, and wherever, left things better than I found them.

And it all started with a rather disappointing performance at Southampton 55 years ago today.

 

by

One man saved more lives than anyone else in history . . .

A billion lives, it is said.

Official portrait of Norman Borlaug for his Nobel Peace Prize.

And that man was Dr Norman Ernest Borlaug (1914-2009), an agricultural scientist from northeast Iowa, whose research to develop short-strawed and high-yielding varieties staved off predicted widespread famines in the 1960s.

It was the beginning of an international effort to enhance agricultural productivity that endures to this day through the centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research or CGIAR, one of which is CIMMYT¹ (the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement in Mexico) where Borlaug spent many years as Director of the International Wheat Improvement Program (now the Global Wheat Program).

Dr Borlaug was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to promote global food supply, an act that contributes greatly to peace. And for having given a well-founded hope – the green revolution.

The expression “the green revolution” is permanently linked to Norman Borlaug’s name. He obtained a PhD in plant protection [from the University of Minnesota] at the age of 27, and worked in Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s to make the country self-sufficient in grain. Borlaug recommended improved methods of cultivation, and developed a robust strain of wheat – dwarf wheat – that was adapted to Mexican conditions. By 1956 the country had become self-sufficient in wheat.

Success in Mexico made Borlaug a much sought-after adviser to countries whose food production was not keeping pace with their population growth. In the mid-1960s, he introduced dwarf wheat into India and Pakistan, and production increased enormously. The expression “the green revolution” made Borlaug’s name known beyond scientific circles, but he always emphasized that he himself was only part of a team. (Source: www.nobelprize.org).

You can read his Nobel Prize lecture here.

Almost thirty years later, Borlaug returned to Oslo and reflected (in this lecture) on the progress that had been made since his 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.

He received many other awards in addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977) and the Congressional Gold Medal (2006), one of only seven individuals worldwide to receive all three awards².

His is one of two Iowa statues in the US Capitol’s Statuary Hall, unveiled in 2014 and replacing one of the state’s existing statues. It was sculpted by Benjamin Victor. A duplicate stands on the University of Minnesota campus in St Paul, outside the building named in his honour.

He founded the World Food Prize in 1986, a prestigious, international award given each year to honor the work of great agricultural scientists working to end hunger and improve the food supply.

It was initially sponsored and formed by businessman and philanthropist John Ruan Sr with support from the Governor and State Legislature of Iowa. Since 1987, there have been 55 laureates from 21 countries.

On 9 June 2017, Steph and I were on the last day of a 10 day road trip that had taken us from Atlanta, Georgia down to the coast at Savannah, then up through South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and back to the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Almost 2800 miles.

We’d spent our last night in a suburb of Iowa City before setting off north to St Paul the following morning. In a little under 3 hours, we found ourselves in Cresco, the county seat of Howard County (just south of the state line with Minnesota) in the lovely Bluff Country that encompasses northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota, and southwest Wisconsin.

On the eastern outskirts of Cresco we came across this large billboard beside the road.

Anyway, as I stopped to take a photograph, I recalled having caught a glimpse—some miles south of Cresco—of a signpost to the ‘Borlaug Birthplace Farm’. Well, being somewhat pressed for time (and having another 180 miles to complete our journey to St Paul), we didn’t turn round and explore.

So it was just a vague hope that someday I might return, since I had met Dr Borlaug in April 1999 when he visited the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI, another of the CGIAR centers) in the Philippines where I was working at the time. It was a hope recently fulfilled.

Explaining how rice seeds are stored in the International Rice Genebank to Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug

Earlier this year, I had contacted Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa asking if Steph and I could have a ‘behind-the-scenes’ visit during our vacation in the USA, a vacation we have just returned from. It was then I discovered that Cresco was just a short drive west from Decorah, and I contemplated whether a tour of the Borlaug Birthplace and Boyhood Farms might be feasible.

So I contacted the Norman Borlaug Heritage Foundation (NBHF, set up in 2000) and very quickly received a reply that NBHF board members would be delighted to arrange a tour.

And that’s what we did on 3 June, setting off from Decorah in time to meet up with board members Tom Spindler (Tours) and Gary Gassett (Co-Treasurer) at the Borlaug Boyhood Farm.

NBHF board members Gary Gassett (L) and Tom Spindler (R) in the old school room on the Borlaug boyhood farm site.

Norman Borlaug came from humble beginnings, the great-grandson of Norwegian immigrants in the late 19th century.

Norman’s grandparents, Emma and Nels (and others of the Borlaug clan) settled in the Cresco area. They had three sons: Oscar, Henry (Norman’s father, second from left), and Ned.

Henry married Clara Vaala, and after Norman was born on 25 March 1914 in his grandparents house, the family lived there for several years. Norman had three younger sisters, Palma Lilian, Charlotte, and Helen (who was born and died in 1921).

The house is currently not open for visitors, as several parts are undergoing extensive repair and renovation.

Henry and Clara bought a small plot of land (around 200 acres) less than a mile from their parent’s farm, but until he was 8, Norman continued to live with his grandparents. By then, in 1922, Henry and Clara had built their own home, ordered from Sears, Roebuck of Chicago. The original flatpack!

Life must have been hard on the Borlaug farm, the winters tough. Heating for the house came solely from the stove in the kitchen with warm(er) air rising to the four bedrooms bedrooms upstairs through a metal grill in the ceiling. There was an outhouse privy some 15 m or so from the back porch.

Besides the kitchen, with its hand pump to deliver water for washing, the other room on the ground floor was a combined parlour cum dining room.

Norman’s bedroom
The view over the farm from Norman’s bedroom

On the front of the house there is a set of steps leading to a porch along the width of the house. Mature pine trees now surround the house, with a row to the front of the house planted by Norman when he was studying for his BS in forestry at the University of Minnesota (only later did he turn to plant pathology for his graduate studies).

On the farm, Henry eventually built a barn in 1929 to house their livestock There is a long chicken coop, beside which is a bronze statue of Norman as a boy feeding the chickens. It was created by Dr Bill Faller and donated to the NBHF, as was another nearby depicting Norman’s work around the world.

In one outhouse there’s a nice memento of Norman’s boyhood here: his initials inscribed on a wall.

It’s said that Norman was an average student. From an early age, until Grade 8, he joined his classmates (of both Lutheran Norwegian and Catholic Czech descent – Czechs had settled in the area of Protivin and Spillville west of the Borlaug farms) in a one room schoolroom (built in 1865) that was originally located about a mile away from the farm. Norwegian children on one side of the room, the Czechs on the other.

At that time, most pupils reaching Grade 8 would leave full-time education and return to working on the family farm. But Norman’s teacher at the time, his cousin Sina Borlaug (right), encouraged both parents and grandparents to permit Norman to attend high school in Cresco. Which he did, boarding with a family there Monday to Friday, returning home each weekend to take on his fair share of the farm chores.

And the rest is history, so to speak. He eventually made it to the University of Minnesota in St Paul to study forestry, spending some time working in that field before completing (in 1942) his PhD on variation and variability in the pathogen that causes flax wilt, Fusarium lini (now F. oxysporum f.sp. lini).

He joined a small group of scientists on a Rockefeller Foundation funded project in Mexico in 1944, and remained in Mexico until he retired. Among these colleagues was potato pathologist, Dr John Niederhauser, who became a colleague of mine as we developed a regional potato program (PRECODEPA) in the late 1970s.

Borlaug and Niederhauser were very keen baseball fans, and they introduced Little League Baseball to Mexico. That achievement is mentioned in one of the posters (below) in the Borlaug home, and our two NBHF guides, Tom and Garry, were surprised to learn that not only had I met Borlaug, but had worked with Niederhauser as well.

Active to the end of his life, Dr Borlaug passed away in Texas on 12 September 2009. His ashes were scattered at several places, including the Iowa farms.

To the end of his life he was passionate about the need for technology to enhance agricultural productivity. And one point of view remained as strong as ever: peace and the eradication of human misery were underpinned by food security.

It was a fascinating tour of the Borlaug Birthplace and Boyhood Farms, and Steph and I are grateful to Tom and Garry for taking the time (over 2.5 hours) to give us a personal tour.

The NBHF has several programs, including internships and one designed especially for schoolchildren to make them aware of Borlaug’s legacy, and why it is important. You can find much more information on the Foundation website.

¹ Many of Dr Borlaug’s day-to-day belongings (including his typewriter) are displayed in the office suite he occupied at CIMMYT. The photos are courtesy of two former IRRI colleagues, plant breeder Dr Mark Nas and Finance Manager Remy Labuguen who now work at CIMMYT.

Dr Borlaug stepped down as head of CIMMYT’s wheat program around 1982, but he remained as active as ever. He especially enjoyed spending time with trainees, passing on his wealth of knowledge about wheat improvement to the next generation of breeders and agronomists.

In this photo, he is showing trainees how to select viable seeds at CIMMYT’s Obregon Wheat Research Station in the spring of 1992.

One of my colleagues at IRRI, Gene Hettel, was the communications specialist in the wheat program at CIMMYT between 1986 and 1995.

Gene told me that Borlaug’s office was directly above mine—that made it handy for when he had editorial chores for me. Sometimes he would call me up to his office if he had a really big job—maybe a major book chapter to edit. Other times he dropped by my office with a grin on his face: “Are you busy?”

Here they are together in the wheat plots just outside their offices to get away from all the paperwork and just “talk” to the plants!

² The other six are: Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Martin Luther King Jr (USA), Mother Teresa (Albania-India), Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh), Elie Wiesel (USA), and Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar). Mohammad Yunus (currently Chief Advisor of the interim government of Bangladesh) was a member of IRRI’s Board of Trustees (1989 to 1994) when I joined the institute in 1991.

by

Saving seeds, linking generations . . .

If you’ve never been to Seed Savers Exchange near Decorah in the lovely Bluff Country of northeast Iowa, then you should. Especially as it is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Founded in 1975 (originally as True Seed Exchange) by Kent and Diane Ott Whealy in Missouri, Seed Savers Exchange is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit that conserves and promotes America’s culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.

In this video, Diane Ott Whealy describes how it all began.

Seed Savers Exchange moved to Decorah in 1987, when the Whealys bought a parcel of land, which became Heritage Farm.

Over five decades, Seed Savers Exchange has built an impressive community (in reality a movement) of gardeners and seed stewards, sharing and swapping unique varieties you might not find anywhere else, combining in situ conservation in home gardens and ex situ in the seedbank at Decorah.

Varieties such as these (of the many thousands in the Exchange network and collection):

  • Cherokee Trail of Tears, a snap bean carried by the Cherokee over the Trail of Tears, the infamous death march from the Smoky Mountains to Oklahoma in 1838-39);
  • Bull Nose Bell, a sweet pepper introduced into North America in the 1700s, and grown by elder statesman and third POTUS, Thomas Jefferson, in his garden at Monticello in 1812);
  • or the tomato variety German Pink (one of two varieties that started it all – the other being Grandpa Ott’s, a morning glory) introduced into the USA from Bavaria in the late 19th century. Both are featured on the covers of The Exchange 2025 Yearbook and The 2025 Seed Catalog.

There’s lots to see and do at Seed Savers Exchange (click on the image below – and others with a red border – to open a larger version) and visitors are encouraged to hike the trails, and explore the 890 acre farm.

When the apples are ripe in the Historic Orchard, visitors may pick their own. Local cider producers make a beeline to harvest and collect windfalls.

But Seed Savers Exchange is not all plants. The Ancient White Park cattle were introduced into the USA from the UK during WWII as a safeguard against loss of this ancient breed. Several herds were established, two ending up in Decorah. Coincidentally, not far from where we are now living in the northeast of England, there is a completely feral (but enclosed) herd of these beautiful cattle at Chillingham.

During our recent trip to the USA, Steph and I enjoyed a day-long visit to Seed Savers Exchange, staying a couple of nights in Decorah. It was an easy drive south from St Paul, MN (just under 160 miles, and about 3.5 hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon).

A visit to Seed Savers Exchange was first mooted in May 2024, but having just made a long road trip across Utah and Colorado, I really didn’t want to get behind the wheel again. However, we had no epic road trip plans this year, so I decided to contact Executive Director, Mike Bollinger (right) last February to set up a visit.

Regular readers of my blog will know that Steph and I first became part of the germplasm conservation movement in the early 1970s. I spent much of my career in international agricultural research and academia, collecting farmer varieties of potatoes across the Andes of Peru, and in the Philippines managing the world’s largest genebank for rice at the International Rice Research Institute.

So I asked Mike if we could have a ‘behind-the-scenes’ visit (not open to regular visitors), to learn about the organization in detail, and the management of such a large and diverse collection of plant species. He quickly agreed, and asked Director of Preservation, Michael Washburn (right) to set up a program for us.

In this post I’m not going to describe how Seed Savers Exchange works with its members, and how they share seeds among the community or from the seedbank. That information is available in detail on this section of its website.

Incidentally, Seed Savers Exchange also has a commercial arm (which supports its non-profit mission), selling seeds through an annual catalog of around 600 or so varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers, some of which come from the collection.

Michael introduced us to the preservation team (see below), and we spent time with each as well as having a very informative round table discussion where we shared our different perspectives and experiences in seed conservation.

Let me highlight some fundamental differences between managing (as I did) the rice collection at IRRI and the collection at Seed Savers Exchange.

IRRI’s collection of rice has its own complexities due to its size and the origin of the germplasm from many countries, with conservation and exchange subject to the rules of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

On the other hand, Seed Savers Exchange is a voluntary non-profit, operating within the USA, and not subject to the same bureaucratic constraints. However, its complexity lies with the number of species conserved (and their conservation needs), as well as catering to the needs of the many members in the Exchange network.

Standing (L-R): Heidi Betz (seed bank inventory technician), Maddison MacDonald (potato tissue culture lab manager), Briana Smorstad ( seed bank manager), Jamie Hanson (orchard manager), Sara Straate (seed historian), Natalie Aird (seed bank inventory coordinator), and Michael Washburn. Kneeling: Eduardo Fernandez (assistant seed historian). Seated (L-R): me, Josie Flatgrad (membership and exchange coordinator), and Steph.

Seed bank manager Briana Smorstad explained that the Seed Savers Exchange Collection has around 20,000 accessions (although the database lists many more that are no longer available). About 6000 (about 30% of the collection) are distributable accessions.

This is the scope of the collection, as defined in its 2013 Accessions Policy (updated in 2020):

As with any genebank, this one has its issues with ‘duplicate’ varieties (some with the same name but not necessarily the same variety, and others with different names) currently estimated at around 21% of the collection. Fortunately, and as we all agreed in our round table, Seed Savers Exchange does have a comprehensive database (developed in Microsoft Access) that keeps track of all the germplasm, its status, and where it actually sits in the cold stores (so can be quickly accessed). In the past year, some 4922 varieties were offered through the Exchange. However, if one of the members is listing any variety the Decorah team don’t list these for distribution.

In the ‘active collection’ with seed bank manager Briana Smorstad.

Natalie Aird, the seed bank inventory coordinator (who showed us the database) handles the seed quality assessments, running routine germination tests according to well-established protocols. And these important data guide how and when seeds become available for distribution.

Natalie demonstrating the seed germination test for bean seeds, and the incubator for the tests.

We were especially privileged to be shown the base collection cold store (at around -18°C).

A recent initiative was launched, known as the L-to-D Project (Legacy to Distribution) which has moved 70 varieties in the collection into the Exchange.

The collection has Distributable or D varieties with sufficient seeds to meet regular requests through the Exchange. To have enough seeds means regeneration and multiplication on the Heritage Farm, which is time-, space, and labor-intensive. However, a whole series of seed packets or Legacy (L) accessions were identified in the collection, which were tested for quality and germination, and if reaching the desired standard were moved on to the D list, as was the case with the 70 varieties mentioned above. The project is described in more detail here.

And to safeguard the collection decades into the future, Seed Savers Exchange has sent seeds to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault every year since the vault was first opened in 2008. Here’s a brief report from a Crop Trust news article in early June.

Here are the seedbank team (L-R, Natalie, Heidi, and Briana) preparing to send seeds to Svalbard earlier this year.

Seed Savers Exchange faces particular challenges with two components of its collection, namely the potato varieties, and the apple trees in the Heritage Orchard, which are maintained vegetatively.

In the case of potatoes, curated by Maddison MacDonald, there are 18 US heirloom varieties, 72 historic heirloom varieties, 10 exchange heirlooms. But the number of accessions is much higher. All maintained a virus-free tissue cultures. Potato varieties are distributed as tissue cultures, illustrated below.

One of the collection advisers (and former head of the genebank at the International Potato Center) Dr David Ellis has identified a group of 53 varieties (a core, so-to-speak) that represent the genetic diversity of the whole potato collection. But there is almost no overlap with the heirloom varieties mentioned earlier. The heirloom varieties meet the strict acquisition criteria for the collection and therefore have the highest priority. Managing a smaller number of priority varieties would permit greater focus on those. And, quite independently from David Ellis, I did suggest that Maddison should consider converting many of the other varieties to true potato seed, and in this way conserving the genetic diversity of the collection if not the individual clones.

The collection has an apple orchard with 1042 trees, consisting of 337 unique named varieties, managed by Jamie Hanson (below) and an assistant.

But there are duplicate trees, and these have been identified by DNA fingerprinting through Washington State University’s MyFruitTree initiative (at a cost of just $50 per sample). For example, fingerprinting has identified seven Bethel trees in the orchard, which will permit, in the future, removal of duplicate trees as part of orchard management. Jamie also curates a legacy grape breeding collection from the University of Minnesota.

I was particularly impressed by the outreach program involved in distributing apple varieties, whereby online tuition in grafting is given and the necessary tools also sent with the rootstocks and scions.

Besides conserving the seeds and vegetatively-propagated species at Seed Savers Exchange, there is also coordination of the membership and Exchange (the gardener-to-gardener seed swap) a role that falls to Josie Flatgrad (right).

Each year the Yearbook is published, a comprehensive tome of 474 pages! What a treasure trove of germplasm detail.

It has all the listings of varieties (this link explains how to read the listings) available from members, Seed Savers Exchange, details of the person offering seeds (some of whom have been listing seeds for more than 30 years), as well as a description of each variety. And to illustrate, here is the listing for Cherokee Trail of Tears (and also its catalog description) offered by members in California, Missouri, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario.

Following a lively round-table discussion with everyone who we met, Steph and I toured the Lillian Goldman Visitors Center (named after the philanthropist whose daughter Amy Goldman Fowler is a Special Advisor to Seed Savers Exchange Board of Directors), and the Iowa heritage barn (beside which Grandpa Ott’s morning glory were just beginning to climb), and the lovely garden in front that Diane Ott Whealy designed and looks after.

We are extremely grateful to Mike Bollinger and the whole Seed Savers Exchange team for their hospitality, their collegiality, and open discussions. We thoroughly enjoyed our six hours at Seed Savers Exchange, and hope to visit again in the future. And even though I spent most of my career in genetic conservation and use, I learned much that was new to me on this visit. It was an experience I shall cherish.

But let me finish this post by pointing you to this page on the Seed Savers Exchange website where there are numerous stories about a range of heirloom varieties and some of the stewards who make conservation of these varieties possible.

Inspirational indeed!

 

by

‘Habemos Papam’

Pope Leo XIV

And with those two words, Protodeacon of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Dominique François Joseph Mamberti, announced from the balcony of St Peter’s in Rome (on the afternoon of 8 May 2025) that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost (right, a dual US-Peruvian citizen, born in Chicago) had been elected as the new pope, taking the name Leo XIV, less than three weeks after the death of Pope Francis. Leo XIV is the 267th occupant of the Holy See stretching back 2000 years.

He is the first English-speaking pope since Adrian IV (c. 1100-(1154)-1159), born Nicholas Breakspear in England (who probably spoke French for much of his life).

During my lifetime, there have been eight popes . . . so far. And given his relatively young age (69, and in seemingly good health, as a keen tennis player), Leo XIV will probably outlast me.

L-R: Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI,  and John Paul I

L-R: John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis.

I was baptised a Catholic, probably in early 1949 (having been born in November 1948), but didn’t attend a Catholic school until my family moved to Leek in April 1956. Then, my elder brother Edgar and I moved to St Mary’s primary school where we were taught by nuns of the Sisters of Loreto order (and some lay teachers as well).

I went through a phase of religious commitment for a few years, but by the time I’d left high school in June 1967, I had—as they say—’lost my faith’. And ever since I’ve been a contented atheist verging on agnostic. I say this because I don’t think I can entirely escape my early religious upbringing/indoctrination.

In my formative years, with Sunday Mass and other religious observations, reverence for the Pope was just accepted as part of being a Catholic.

But what this recent Conclave has illustrated, once again, is just how anticipated and newsworthy the election of a pope is worldwide, for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. And immediately, Leo XIV’s face has become one of the most recognisable.

In the immediate aftermath of his election, much has been written and spoken about this new pope, his origins, ministry, and beliefs. He’s the first pope from the USA, and the second from the Americas. Indeed it was often thought that the election of a pope from the USA could never happen given the potential geopolitical ramifications. He became a naturalised Peruvian citizen after spending many years in that country, latterly as Bishop of Chiclayo, and was made a cardinal by Pope Francis just two years ago. He took a degree in mathematics, and is the first Augustinian (OSA) pope.

The choice of his papal name is also significant. His nominal predecessor, Leo XIII (1810-(1878)-1903) published the encyclical Rerum novarum (Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor), a foundation of Catholic social teaching. And surely this choice of name indicates that Leo XIV will speak out in support of the poor, the disadvantaged. It seems he is not shy of speaking truth to power, as evidenced by a recent put down of US Vice-President JD Vance (a convert to Catholicism) and other commentaries on the policies enacted by the Trump administration. He’ll continue to have moral authority of taking on the likes of Trump, provided he also confronts, head on, the worst excesses and abuses (particularly the sexual abuses perpetrated by clergy) of the Church.

Not all Catholics are happy at the outcome of the Conclave. In the USA for example there is a not insignificant traditionalist arm of the church who are not likely to welcome Leo’s continuation (perhaps expansion even) of the social and inclusive legacy left by Pope Francis.

And some have even been outspoken about Leo’s election. Take alt-right political activist, Trump acolyte and apologist Steve Bannon (himself a Catholic apparently) for instance.

Just take a look (in the first minute or so of this video) at his egregiously offensive and outrageously conspiratorial commentary, condemning the Conclave as ‘rigged’, because Prevost was considered anti-Trump. How preposterous!

 

by

Who is Jacob Collier?

Until about three weeks ago, I’d never heard of Jacob Collier. Then YouTube offered up this video.

In this performance at the O2 Arena in London in December 2024, he was joined by Coldplay front man Chris Martin to sing Coldplay’s Fix You. The video has been viewed more than 5.5 million times.

So, who is Jacob Collier (right)? He’s an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and educator. Born in London in 1994, he certainly has an interesting musical pedigree. He is of part Chinese descent through his mother Suzie Collier, a highly acclaimed conductor, violinist, educator, and mentor. And his grandfather, Derek Collier, was also a violinist, and leader of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Jacob has been active since 2002, but it was not until around 2013 that his video covers of songs began to go viral, one in particular.

This was his cover of Stevie Wonder’s Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing, released in 2013, that launched his career. It’s had 11 million views.

He’s a seven times Grammy Award winner. His YouTube channel has almost 2 million subscribers. And he’s about to embark on a world tour of 36 concerts that will finish at the end of October.

Why had I never heard of him? He completely slipped under my musical radar. Not your cup of tea, perhaps. And there’s some of what I’ve heard and seen that’s not for me. But he does have a huge following around the world and plays to packed houses.

And what’s his secret? Here, composer David Bruce explains.

Sharing the emotional impact of one of Collier’s live performances, here is another video by Scottish vocal coach Beth Compson Bradford (aka Beth Roars on her website and YouTube channel), who was in the audience for that December 2024 concert.

His fascination with harmony and engaging the audiences in his performances has certainly captured my attention.

 

by

A rather unusual castle not far from the Suffolk coast

It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly the Normans established control of England after the conquest in 1066, building castles right across the country. For example, construction of Barnard Castle (which we visited a couple of weeks ago) in County Durham began in 1083. And although the Normans did their fair share of castle building perhaps the golden age came under the Plantagenets, between the 12th and 14th centuries.

Through our membership of English Heritage, Steph and I have now visited 50 castles and fortifications. These range from pre-historic hill forts, several constructed by the Romans, as well as those in the centuries following the arrival of the Normans. I have written about those castles, and included a map, in this post. Castles come in all shapes and sizes.

I guess if you were to ask a child to draw a castle, the stylised image would include a curtain wall with crenellations, towers, a central keep, and an enclosing ditch or moat, just like we have seen at Warkworth in Northumberland, Caernarfon in North Wales, Goodrich in Herefordshire, Bodiam in East Sussex, and Dover in Kent, to name just five.

Warkworth Castle
Caernarfon Castle
Goodrich Castle
Bodiam Castle
Dover Castle

Last September, during a week long holiday in East Anglia, we took in the late 12th castle at Framlingham, about half distance between our holiday cottage and the Suffolk coast.

As it says on the English Heritage website, Framlingham is a magnificent late 12th-century castle, its striking outline reflected in the nearby mere. Surrounded by parkland and estates, it was once at the centre of a vast network of power and influence. Its owners for over 400 years were the Earls and Dukes of Norfolk, the supreme magnates in East Anglia – rich, ambitious and influential both at home and abroad.

And it was not quite what we expected, even though first impressions from outside did not suggest anything unusual. There it was, standing on a bluff over looking the River Ore, with a high curtain wall and thirteen towers. Hugh Bigod (d. 1177), 1st Earl of Norfolk began construction of the castle, but it was his successor Roger Bigod II (d. 1221) who built the curtain walls seen today.

English Heritage has published a comprehensive history on its website, and also tells Framlingham’s complex story in this animation.

What is unusual about Framlingham is that there is no central keep. And apparently there never was one. Instead, inside the Inner Court there were numerous free-standing buildings, or leaning against the curtain wall, with the remains of Tudor chimneys still in situ today. One special feature of a visit to Framlingham is the Wall Walk, which permits a 360º view of the Inner Court.

Two nieces of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, were the second and fifth wives of Henry VIII, both losing their heads after being accused of adultery. The duke was disgraced, and in 1552, Framlingham became the property of Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s elder daughter by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. In 1553, after Lady Jane Grey launched her unsuccessful nine-day claim to the throne of England, Mary assembled troops at Framlingham, and was proclaimed queen in mid-July.

The castle became a prison, and by about 1589, it had fallen into disrepair. But history hadn’t done with Framlingham quite yet.

In 1635, the castle was sold to Sir Robert Hitcham, Member of Parliament and Attorney General to King James I. He died a year later but left instructions in his will for the castle buildings to be demolished and the stone used to build a workhouse (poorhouse), which still stands today. The workhouse comprises the original 17th century ‘Red Wing’, an 18th century middle wing, and on the right, the remains of the Great Hall.

Marchi, Giuseppe Filippo Liberati; Sir Robert Hitcham (1573-1636); Pembroke College, Cambridge; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/sir-robert-hitcham-15731636-195504

Click this link to open a complete album of photos, including images of the information boards across the castle site.

 

by

I went to Barnard Castle . . . but not for an eye test

I guess many folks south of the Watford Gap (often seen as the gateway between Northern England and Southern England) would have seldom if ever heard of Barnard Castle, a small market town in County Durham in the northeast of the country.

That is until May 2020 (during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic) when Dominic Cummings (right), a political strategist and chief adviser to then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was accused of breaking the strict lockdown regulations. Having taken his family north to County Durham from London (over 270 miles) in mid-April to stay with his parents, the family drove 30 miles to Barnard Castle to test—so Cummings claimed in a press conference—whether he was well enough to drive, having some problems with his eyesight. Since the majority of the population had isolated as required, Cummings’ apparent breach of the lockdown rules caused quite a scandal.

Even the local optician, Specsavers (whose strapline is ‘Should have gone to Specsavers‘) got in on the act offering free eye tests for anyone visiting the town. Needless to say that the visit Steph and I made to this delightful Durham town a couple of weeks ago was not for an eye test.

No, we were there to explore the medieval castle built on a craggy outcrop overlooking the River Tees, as well as the ruins of Egglestone Abbey just a couple of miles southeast from the town center. And we planned a drive home over the glorious moorland between Teesdale and Weardale.

And we couldn’t have asked for better weather.

There is a comprehensive description and chronology of the castle’s history on the English Heritage website, so I am not going to elaborate further here, save to post the introduction on that particular page:

Barnard Castle was begun soon after 1093 on a dramatic site above the river Tees.

The castle was built to control a river crossing between the Bishop of Durham’s territory and the Honour of Richmond. Much of the present castle was built during the 12th and early 13th centuries by the Balliol family. The clifftop inner ward shows the remains of fine domestic buildings, including a magnificent round tower of around 1200.

From the 14th century onwards, the castle belonged to the earls of Warwick, and from 1471 to 1485 to the Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III.

This is the remains of the image of Richard III’s boar above the oriel window.

The round tower and oriel window from below.

After a fierce siege in 1569, when the castle was bombarded by rebels, the castle went into steep decline and was effectively abandoned by the early 17th century. It has remained an imposing ruin ever since.

Richmond Castle is just 15 miles southeast, and Middleham Castle (the boyhood home and northern stronghold of Richard III) is another 11 miles south.

Before heading to Barnard Castle, a neighbour had mentioned there was little to see there. Perhaps the ruins of the castle are not as extensive as others we have visited, but all around the site, English Heritage has placed explanatory information boards that put everything in perspective. And the young employees on reception were most helpful in pointing out different points of interest, and where precisely to view the Richard III boar!

The layout of the castle is a series of courtyards or wards, enclosed in a curtain wall, with the strongest and best fortified being the Inner Ward surrounding the Round Tower, Great Hall, and ancillary buildings like the bakery. The Inner Ward was also protected on two sides by the Great Ditch, and of course on the others by the cliff on which the castle had been built. Click the image below to see a detailed ground plan.

Entering through the main or North Gate, the expanse of the Tower Ward stretches to the Outer Ward.

The North Gate
Town Ward looking towards the Outer Ward
The Great Ditch around the Middle and Inner Wards
Curtain wall
Curtain wall
The Outer Ward
The Town Ward from the Outer Ward

The Great Ditch is rather impressive, and the Inner Ward is protected by a huge wall across the ditch.

What particularly impressed me about the Round Tower was the beauty of the dressed stone which covers the outer surface. English Heritage has opened the narrow stairs around the tower that take you up to the upper levels, with interesting views inside. Of course all the floors have long disappeared.

You can see the complete album of photos (together with images of the information boards) here.

After a walk down to the river so we could observe the castle in all its splendour on top of the crag, we headed back into the town, passing again past the impressive butter market (officially the Market Cross) built in 1747. It’s had several uses including town hall, fire station, prison, and dairy market.

I should add, for the benefit of anyone contemplating visiting Barnard Castle, that it is a busy town. There is no English Heritage parking at the castle. We parked at the long-term Queen Street car park (cash, cards, and app payment), £1.10 for 4 hours. There are 65 spaces, including two electric charging points. Great value. Well done Durham County Council!

Egglestone Abbey (formally the abbey of St Mary and St John the Baptist) was founded between 1195 and 1198 for Premonstratensian or ‘white’ canons. The only other abbey or priory of this order we have visited was in Kent, at Bayham Old Abbey.

The abbey was never prosperous, indeed quite small. It stands on a rise overlooking the Tees. English Heritage have a comprehensive history account on its website. A ground plan can be accessed here.

Today, the ruins comprise parts of the nave (with both Norman and Gothic doors), the outlines of the cloister and several other buildings, and the east range which was rebuilt in the 16th century, presumably after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. There is some particularly fine stonework.

I have posted more photos of the site and information boards in this album.

Then it was time to head home, a round trip of 120 miles.

The North Pennines National Landscape is truly spectacular, especially if the weather is good. Here is a video I made from my dashcam. It starts just before reaching Eggleston where we turned on to the B6278 to cross from Teesdale into Weardale, reaching almost 1700 feet at the highest point. It must be grim up there in mid-winter.

In July 2024 we’d visited High Force waterfall, further west up Teesdale from Barnard Castle, and crossed over from Teesdale to Weardale there. In this post you can view the video of that western route, as well as from Weardale to the Tyne Valley. We also took that latter route on our recent trip.

 

by

Costa Rica on my mind . . .

Steph and I first visited Costa Rica in April 1975. It’s hard to believe that it was 50 years ago. We were on our way back to the UK where I had to complete PhD residency requirements at the University of Birmingham, and submit my thesis.

Since January 1973 I’d been working at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Lima, Peru. Subject to successful completion of my PhD, I’d been offered a postdoc position with CIP in its Region II (Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean) program, and I’d been asked to check out various research options in Costa Rica and Mexico en route.

A year later Steph and I relocated to Turrialba in Costa Rica, where I was an Affiliate Scientist at CATIE, an agricultural research and training center, while working in CIP’s regional program. Our elder daughter Hannah was born in San José in April 1978, and we remained in Turrialba until the end of November 1980 when we returned to Lima.

In this post I wrote about the years we spent in that beautiful country.

I’ve always enjoyed bird watching, and there were so many opportunities in Costa Rica, because it has such a rich avifauna. I regret however that I didn’t spend more time birding. My work took up so much time, and I traveled a good deal. Of course, there were plenty of colourful birds to see around the CATIE campus, and I always took my binoculars whenever out for a walk. However, we made only one special birding trip—in April 1980—to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve.

Hannah and her family live in Minnesota, and recently spent the school spring break on the northwest Pacific coast of Costa Rica in Guanacaste Province, just west of Liberia. Not long after arriving there, she sent me an WhatsApp message asking about the identity of two large birds that appeared beside their swimming pool.

From Hannah’s description (and photos sent from her mobile), as well as consulting A Guide to the Birds of Panama [1], I concluded that one was a Great-tailed grackle (Cassidix mexicanus), and the other a Black (most probably) or Turkey Vulture.

I hadn’t consulted my Birds of Panama for many years, so was somewhat surprised to find a typed list (PDF) of birds of the Interamerican Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Turrialba (now CATIE) inside the back cover. I’d forgotten that I’d even kept it.

The list, compiled in 1968 by Robert Jenkins (who I believe was the first science director of The Nature Conservancy in the USA) was based on an earlier list [2] by American ornithologist and tropical ecologist Dr Paul Slud (right, 1919-2006), Associate Curator in the Bird Division at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) from 1964 to 1983. He must surely be ranked as one of the pioneers of Costarrican ornithology.

Someone had written my name on the list, as well as a location (Km 77 along Ruta 10 from Cartago to Turrialba), and a time (06:30). Then I remembered. It was the check list we used for a 1979 bird count around Turrialba as part of the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count in the Western Hemisphere (not just the USA) which now takes place annually between 14 December and 5 January.

I don’t remember how many teams (each a pair of observers) set out on the count, only that I was paired with a Costarrican who worked in CATIE’s coffee program and was incredibly knowledgeable about the birds of the area. The name Arnoldo Barrantes comes to mind, but again I could be wrong.

Over several hours, we moved around our target area (to the west and northwest of Turrialba town center), spending about 30 minutes or so at each observation point, counting the number of individuals of each species, and adding them to the check list. After the count was over, someone must have compiled all the observations and presumably submitted them to the National Audubon Society. However, I’ve not been able to find any of the Turrialba data on the society’s website. Online data for Costa Rica don’t stretch back to the late 1970s. Maybe they are just held as paper records still, if at all.

I do remember, however, that the teams observed over 100 species in total, and my colleague and I observed 54. Here are images of most of those 54 species. They were taken by Rob and Jane Beynon who have made several trips to Costa Rica, and who kindly gave me permission to reproduce them here.

With their help I was able to review the Jenkins list, noting that some scientific names and common ones have changed in the years since the list was compiled. And at least one of the species, the Chestnut-winged chachalaca (Ortalis garrula), is not known from Costa Rica, but the Gray-headed chachalaca (Ortalis cinereiceps, considered by some ornithologists as conspecific with O. garrula) is, and was probably the bird we saw.

Do have a look at Rob and Jane’s wonderful website of birds of Costa Rica, of Brazil, Florida, several countries in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK. Taiwan coming soon, I hope. You won’t be disappointed!

This gallery of birds from the ‘1979’ count follows the Jenkins list order.

Green heron (x1)
Cattle egret (x25)
Black vulture (x30)
Turkey vulture (x7)
Swallow-tailed kite (x1)
Osprey (x1)
Gray-necked wood rail (x1)
Purple gallinule (x1)
American jacana (x1)
Red-billed pigeon (x8)
White-tipped dove (x1)
White-crowned parrot (x8)
Squirrel cuckoo (x1)
Groove-billed ani (x15)
Pauraque (x1)
Jacobin (x1)
Rufous-tailed hummingbird (x10)
Ringed kingfisher (x1)
Green kingfisher (x1)
Emerald toucanet (x1)
Collared aracari (x1)
Keel-billed toucan (x1)
Hoffman’s woodpecker (x1)
Masked tityra (x1)
Tropical kingbird (x8)
Social flycatcher (x1)
Great kiskadee (x5)
Common tody-flycatcher (x1)
Brown jay (x11)
Banded cactus wren (x1)
Gray’s robin (x1)
Montezuma oropendula (x10)
Baltimore oriole (x5)
Blue tanager (x9)
Palm tanager (x1)
Scarlet-rumped tanager (x1)
Summer tanager (x1)
Common chlorospingus (x1)
Buff-throated saltator (x1)
Rose-breasted grosbeak (x1)
Yellow-faced grasssquit (x4)
Variable seedeater (x2)
Rufous-collared sparrow (x23)

[1] There were no popular guides to the birds of Costa Rica back in the 1970s (unlike today), and no online resources of course. So we had to resort to A Guide to the Birds of Panama by Robert S Ridgeley and illustrated by John A Gwynne, Jr., which covered many (most?) of the birds of Costa Rica. It was published by Princeton University Press in 1976.

[2] Slud, Paul. 1964. The birds of Costa Rica – distribution and ecology. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Volume 128. New York.

 

by

The northeast has it all . . .

Have you ever visited the northeast of England? The ancient Kingdom of Northumbria. If not, why not? We think the northeast is one of the most awe-inspiring regions of the country.

My wife and I moved here, just east of Newcastle upon Tyne, in October 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Newcastle is the largest city in the northeast, on the north bank of the River Tyne (seen in this video from the Gateshead south bank) with its many iconic bridges, and the Glasshouse International Centre for Music on the left (formerly Sage Gateshead, known locally as The Slug).

We visited Northumberland for the first in the summer of 1998 when home on leave from the Philippines, never once contemplating that we’d actually be living here 22 years later. We have been regular visitors to the northeast since 2000 when our younger daughter Philippa began her undergraduate studies at Durham University, and she has remained in the northeast ever since.

Northumbria has it all: hills, moorlands, river valleys, beaches and, to cap it all, a rich history and lively culture. There are so many glorious landscapes to enjoy: the Northumberland National Park stretching to the border with Scotland; the dales and uplands of the North Pennines National Landscape in Durham and North Yorkshire, as well as the North York Moors a little further south. And all easily accessible from home. Here’s just a small sample.

Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall, in February 2022 just before vandals felled this iconic tree.
Hadrian’s Wall, near Housesteads fort
Whitby Abbey
Upper Coquetdale
The beach at Druridge Bay
Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre
Byland Abbey
Warkworth Castle
Duddo Five Stones
Lordenshaws Iron Age Hill Fort
Coquetdale, Northumberland
Blast Beach, Co Durham
Marsden Rock
National Trust Souter Lighthouse
Plessey Woods Country Park along the River Blyth
Penshaw Monument
Exhibition at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland
National Trust Cragside
Wall paper at Belsay Hall (English Heritage)
Prudhoe castle from the pele yard, English Heritage
High Force waterfall on the River Tees
St Jon’s Anglo-Saxon church, Edlingham
Angel of the North

On this map I have pinpointed all places we have visited since October 2020 (and a couple from earlier years), several places multiple times. Do explore by clicking on the expansion box (illustrated right) in the map’s top right-hand corner. I have grouped all the sites into different color-coded categories such as landscapes, coast, Roman sites, religious sites, and castles, etc.

For each location there is a link to one of my blog posts, an external website, or one of my photo albums.

This map and all the links illustrate just how varied and beautiful this northeast region of England truly is.

Northumberland is one of the least populated counties in England. Most of the population is concentrated in the southeast of the county, in areas where there were, until the 1980s, thriving coal-mining communities, and a rich legacy of heavy industry along the Tyne, such as ship-building. The landscape has been reclaimed, spoil heaps have been removed, and nature restored over areas that were once industrial wastelands.

So why did we choose to make this move, almost 230 miles north from our home (of almost 40 years)  in Worcestershire? After all, Worcestershire (and surrounding counties in the Midlands) is a beautiful county, and we raised our two daughters there, at least in their early years.

When we moved back to the UK in 1981 after more than eight years in South and Central America, we bought a house in Bromsgrove, a small market town in the north of the county, and very convenient for my daily 13-mile commute into The University of Birmingham, where I taught in the Department of Plant Biology. And there we happily stayed until mid-1991 when I accepted a position at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, while keeping our house empty but furnished for the next 18 years.

Retiring in April 2010, we moved back to Bromsgrove, getting to know the town and surrounding counties again. Joining the National Trust in 2011 (and English Heritage a couple of years or so later) gave us an added incentive to explore just how much the Midlands had to offer: beautiful landscapes, historic houses and castles, and the like. You can view all the places we visited on this map.

But we had no family ties to Bromsgrove. And to cap it all, our elder daughter Hannah had studied, married, and settled in the United States and, as I mentioned before, Philippa was already in the northeast.

For several years, we resisted Philippa’s ‘encouragement’ to sell up and move north. After all we felt it would be a big and somewhat uncertain move, and (apart from Philippa and her family) we had no connections with the region. But in early January 2020, we took the plunge and put our house on the market, with the hope (expectation?) of a quick sale. Covid-19 put paid to that, but we finally left Bromsgrove on 30 September.

Last moments at No. 4.

We are now happily settled in North Tyneside and, weather permitting, we get out and about for day excursions as often as we can. There’s so much to discover.

 

by

Like Topsy, my blog just growed

A few days ago I came across this post by Donna Halper (media historian, author, professor, public speaker, former rock & roll deejay best known for having discovered the rock band Rush) in which she described how and why she began blogging ten years ago. Just click on the red box (and others) below.

It was a credit option for a course she was taking at New York University at the time, and she hasn’t stopped since.

That got me thinking about why I started this blog, A Balanced Diet, way back in February 2012, with a short story of just 131 words about a visit my wife Steph and I made to a canal pumping station in Wiltshire.

If you’d asked me then if I would still be writing 13 years later, I probably would have dismissed such an idea as preposterous. I write for myself, but it’s always a pleasure if others appreciate what I publish.

I have kept the overall format of the blog the same, although I have tweaked some aspects, like how I include links and other media items, for example.

Having retired in April 2010 (after a successful career in international agricultural research in South and Central America and the Philippines as well as a decade in academia in the UK), I wanted to record my memories of growing up, studying at university and, of course, those interesting and challenging years working overseas. And what we’ve been up to in the years since.

It was my daughters Hannah and Philippa who suggested I start a blog. So with their encouragement I began putting ‘pen to paper’, so to speak, with that first short attempt.

And here I am, still writing on a regular basis, although I have slowed down somewhat from my early blog years. I write about whatever takes my fancy. That’s one of the joys for me of this blog.

This post is number 755. I can’t quite believe it. That’s an average of just under five posts per month, a total of around 859,000 words, and an average of 1100 words per post! There are more than 18,000 media items (photos, videos, and maps). Most of the photos are mine.

So where is my blog being read? Almost everywhere, it seems. However, I wonder how to attract attention from Greenland without mentioning Donald Trump.

My blog covers a wide range of themes (it is, after all, a balanced diet of ideas), but these are the three main ones:

  • I studied environmental botany and geography as an undergraduate, and was fortunate to make a career from my plant sciences background in the field of conservation and use of plant genetic resources. These posts describe my work on potatoes and rice, collecting potatoes in the Andes of Peru, and running one of the world’s largest and most important genebanks in the Philippines, among others.

  • Through my work I have been lucky to visit almost 70 countries. My elder daughter studied and has settled in the USA (in glorious Minnesota), and apart from the recent Covid years, we have visited the USA each years and have made some epic road trips.

  • All our National Trust and English Heritage and other heritage site visits are described here.

But I have also written about music, books, history, and politics as well. There are also links to these in the column to the right. I really must update those pages.

Regarding politics, I’ve written more posts than I had realised. But it was two events in particular that were the impetus to comment: the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK and Donald Trump’s election (twice!) in the USA.

These are the seven posts that have received more than 3000 views, with the first two (at 7553 and 6890, respectively) almost twice as many as the next highest:

  • I love Test cricket, and enjoyed listening to commentary on the radio as I was growing up. In this post, I describe some of the most amusing commentaries I’ve heard.

  • For many years I was a fan of Garrison Keillor and his program on Minnesota Public Radio, A Prairie Home Companion, sadly no longer broadcast. In 2015, we had the opportunity of attending a live broadcast in St Paul.

  • In 1968, at the end of my first or freshman year at the University of Southampton, the botany students attended a two-week field course in the west of Ireland in Co. Clare. This post describes the beauty of the limestone landscape that’s The Burren.

  • I worked on potatoes for 20 years, spending 1973-1975 at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, exploring the Andes for native varieties.

  • In 2020, we moved 230 miles north to Newcastle upon Tyne, leaving our home of 40 years in Worcestershire. The Romans left an impressive and extensive legacy here in the northeast.

  • In 2017, I decided to read all the novels of English author Charles Dickens. At high school we had to read his novels as part of the English Literature curriculum. And I wasn’t impressed. However, many decades later I came to realise just what a impressive writer Dickens had been.

  • And for a bit of humour, I wrote about two comedy programs that was broadcast on the BBC 60 years ago. The anniversary of the first broadcast was celebrated just a few days ago. Round the Horne and Beyond Our Ken were way ahead of their time – which you will appreciate if you take a read.

With some travel planned for May (to the USA) and September (in the southwest of England in Somerset), there will be plenty to write about. But I am having to restrain myself from commenting further about Trump and Musk. I get too wound up.

 

by

Morons, philistines, iconoclasts . . . or just plain stupid?

Vindictive and vengeful, certainly.

Emboldened by Donald Trump, ‘Department of Government Efficiency‘ or DOGE lead, Elon Musk – the world’s richest man – has taken a chainsaw (his words) to the departments, institutions, and agencies of the US federal government in a cruel and callous not to say careless way over the past few weeks since Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on 20 February 2025 in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

That’s not to deny that inefficiencies can be found and budgetary savings made in any government, and I’m sure the US federal government is no different from any other. But to proceed, as Musk and his acolytes have, is causing possibly irreparable damage on a daily basis, thousands of federal employees are losing their jobs, and this ‘downsizing’ has been effected in, it seems, an indiscriminate way. Last in, first out, and hang the consequences.

As billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban posted on Bluesky (@mcuban.bsky.social) a few hours ago:

Ready Aim Fire is a lousy way to govern.

Has it only been five weeks? It feels more like five years. And already the harm is being done, supported by some of probably the most incompetent and least qualified departmental secretaries (RFK Jr at Health and Pete Hegseth at Defense come immediately to mind, but there are many others, although yesterday Musk declared that Trump’s Cabinet was the most qualified of all time).

Certainly it looks like Musk is on some sort of ego trip. Or perhaps an over-enthusiastic substance-fuelled trip, as Musk has himself acknowledged his use of the same.

I’m not going to comment of the long list of agencies that DOGE has gone after, and having done the damage has had to roll back some of his actions, not entirely with success.

But I would like to comment on two areas that I do have some experience in, and have had contact over the years, directly and indirectly.

It’s beyond comprehension that, seemingly on a whim, DOGE abolished the world’s biggest (although not meeting the UN target of 0.7% of Gross National Income or GNI) and perhaps most important development agency, the United States Agency for International Development or USAid (now subsumed into the State Department).

Here’s how USAid compared to other foreign government development aid agencies:

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their push to cut the size of the federal government. Both men say USAid projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money. (The Guardian, 27 February 2025).

Seems like charity begins at home. Except that the savings won’t be passed on to Mr and Mrs Average American. Wait for the tax cuts for the already rich.

Those cuts at USAid immediately affected humanitarian, health, and agricultural support programs around the world, as personnel were recalled to the US (I have a number of close friends who worked for USAid in the US or abroad), and an immediate ban on further program expenditures implemented. But it’s not just overseas that USAid’s demise will be felt. USAid was a huge purchaser of home-grown grains for donation to the World Food Program or directly to nations suffering food shortages. US farmers will reap the harvest of Musk’s misguided ‘efficiencies’.

For almost 30 years I worked at two (of 14) centers—the International Potato Center (CIP) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)—of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research or CGIAR.

For 2025, the CGIAR had a proposed budget of around USD1 billion, funded through a consortium of donor agencies, and various funding mechanisms. In the past, USAid was one of the largest and most important supporters of the CGIAR. Termination of its funding, if indeed this is what is about to happen, will severely impact how the research centers can continue to operate effectively, and I fear that programs will be cut, and staff let go [1].

The other area of concern with regard to the Trump/Musk attack on federal agencies relates to the long-term safety of the nation’s genetic resources collections managed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In this recent article in Science (just click on the headline below to open) the range of cuts is described and the pushback from agribusiness.

Plant breeder Neha Kothari (right) was hired in October 2024 to streamline and improve the department’s vast collections of seeds and living crops that are key to developing improved varieties. But on 13 February she, like tens of thousands of other recent hires across the government still in probationary status, was dismissed from her job. [2]

The entire gene bank network felt the chainsaw wielded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. About 30 employees—10% of its total staff—were terminated, according to an informal survey by some retired USDA scientists. An additional 10 vacant positions have been frozen or rescinded, and a similar number took Musk’s offer last month to resign immediately but remain on the federal payroll through September.

When I started my career in genetic resources conservation 55 years ago, there was a vision and hope that one day the global system of genebanks would be properly funded. Now, with funding from the Crop Trust, that vision is being realised. And just as the genebank system is being stabilised, DOGE’s attack on the USDA’s germplasm system is unprecedented as well as a totally misguided action by incompetent DOGE staff who, it seems across a wide range of sectors, simply do not have the knowledge, expertise, or experience to make the sorts of ‘chainsaw’ decisions they are inflicting on the federal government.

Which brings me on to a final point. There’s something particularly obscene that the world’s richest man is holding sway over the lives of hundreds of thousands of federal employees (and the nation at large) even while his own companies receive federal grants and contracts reported to be in excess of USD13 billion. I wonder if he’s going after those agencies from which he receives such business largesse? Talk about conflict of interest.

I came across this list of questions about Musk and his wealth which someone posted on Bluesky recently:

Says so much. Just to put Musk’s wealth into perspective. If he was to give away USD1 million a day, it would take over 1000 years to disburse the lot! As far as anyone can tell, Musk has not engaged in any (or very little – I stand to be corrected) philanthropic endeavours.

With his wealth, he could fund the Crop Trust and global genebank activities in perpetuity with just a USD1 billion donation. Loose change for him.

Click here to read the Crop Trust Annual Report for 2023 which explains just how its funding is used to preserve and use the world’s crop genetic heritage.

Not all billionaires are like Musk. At least two billionaires, Bill Gates (with ex-wife Melinda) and Warren Buffet put their money where their mouths are in setting up the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (now the Gates Foundation) that has funded many humanitarian efforts globally, at USD7.7 billion in 2023. While the GF has come in for criticism on several levels, there’s no doubt that its programs have brought about or facilitated real change. Where does Musk stand in this respect? Invisible!

[1] In a news conference a couple of days ago, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced an increase in the nation’s defence budget – at the expense of the overseas aid and development budget. That had already been cut under the previous Conservative government in 2021 from the UN target of 0.7% of GNI (enshrined in law in 2015). The aid budget has been slashed to 0.3% of GNI. The UK is an important donor to the CGIAR, and this reduction is a double whammy (along with USAid) for future CGIAR prospects.

[2] Update from Science, 24 February, 5:35 pm: Science has learned that USDA is reinstating Neha Kothari as leader of the department’s national program on plant genetic resources. Kothari joins several other top-tier government scientists whose firings have been reversed, but so far there is no indication that USDA has reinstated other fired germplasm system staff. Academic leaders and representatives from the agricultural industry had criticized Kothari’s dismissal.

 

by

Killing me softly . . . memories maketh the man! (Updated 25 February 2025)*

Memories. Powerful; fleeting; joyful; or sad. Sometimes, unfortunately, too painful and hidden away in the deepest recesses of the mind, only to be dragged to the surface with great reluctance.

Some memories float to the surface at the slightest instigation. Often all it takes is a glimpse of a treasured landscape, a word spoken by a friend, a few bars of music, or a particular song. Some memories need more persuasion.

And then, one is transported back days, months, years, even decades. Memories can be vague; they can be crystal clear, even while the precise context may be fuzzy round the edges – where, when, or why. They are part and parcel of who each and every one of us is as a person. Without memories, we are nobody.

I have one particular – and very strong – memory whenever Roberta Flack starts to kill me softly . . . Yes, one song. Just a few bars, and I’m taken back 52 years to late January 1973. Lima, Peru.

So why this particular song?

I’d arrived in Lima at the beginning of the month to start my assignment as Associate Taxonomist at the International Potato Center (CIP) in La Molina on the eastern outskirts of the city (now totally subsumed into Lima’s urban sprawl).

After spending a couple of weeks holed up in the Pensión Beech (a guest house in the San Isidro district of Lima), I signed a contract for my own apartment on the 11th or 12th floor of an apartment building (still standing today) at Pasaje Los Pinos in the heart of the Miraflores District. In 1973, there was just a dirt parking lot in front of the apartment building, and the Todos Supermarket (no longer there) was to one side. Now the apartment building is surrounded by high-rise on all sides. It’s a wonder that it has survived about 50 years of earthquakes, including several rather large ones. It never did seem that sturdy to me, but there again, what do I know about engineering?

The arrow indicates the approximate location of my apartment. In January 1973 this building stood in a wide open space – no longer the case.

I moved in, just after my small consignment of airfreight (including a stereo system) had arrived a few days earlier. I had music!

Steph joined me in Lima at the beginning of July 1973, and we stayed in the same apartment for about six weeks more before moving to a larger one elsewhere in Miraflores. My stereo is prominently displayed on the left!

And on the radio station that I tuned into the local radio station, (Radio Panamericana, Radio Pacifico, or perhaps Radio Miraflores?), Killing Me Softly With His Song was played, almost non-stop it seemed, from its release on 21 January 1973 for the next couple of months. It became an instant worldwide success for Roberta Flack. But she wasn’t the first to record it.

KMSWHS was penned by American lyricist Norman Gimbel (who passed away in December 2018), with music by his long-time collaborator Charles Fox. However, there is some dispute over the song’s origins. KMSWHS was originally recorded by American singer Lori Lieberman in 1971.

Whatever the situation, KMSWHS remains a great favorite of mine. Whenever I hear it, I’m 24 years old again, starting out on a career in international agricultural research for development. The world was my oyster!

As I wrote a few years back, I would include KMSWHS on my list of eights discs to take to a desert island. That perspective has not changed.

Yesterday, 24 February 2025, Roberta Flack died in New York at the age of 88.

  • Originally published on 7 January 2019
by

Respect the Office . . . in spite of the occupant?

I grew up believing that—despite the suitability or not of the occupant—one should respect the office of a Prime Minister or President.

But when it comes to the current occupant of the Oval Office, POTUS #47, that’s a hard maxim to follow.

Why? Well, from my perspective (I’m neither a US citizen nor resident), Donald Trump has shown, by his behaviour since his inauguration just four weeks ago, that he himself does not respect the Office of the President of the United States. Furthermore, he continues to be egregiously offensive to long-term allies or individuals. Take, for example, his denigration of the Prime Minister of Canada as ‘Governor Trudeau’. Decidedly un-presidential!

He was bad enough during his first term as POTUS #45. Then he was just a ridiculous moron. Now he’s a ruthless iconoclastic moron, surrounded by acolytes determined to fundamentally change American society—and not for the better.

In less than four weeks he has wreaked havoc on government departments and agencies (too many to recount here¹) and reset US relationships with allies (and foes).

And he unleashed mad dogs in the form of Elon Musk and his cohort of employees from the so-called ‘Department for Government Efficiency’ (DOGE) with, it seems, carte blanche authority to do whatever he pleases.

There’s something particularly obscene in the world’s richest man taking decisions that will impoverish millions (if not billions) of people worldwide.

Notwithstanding also Trump’s cabinet appointments like Robert Kennedy Jr at Health, or Pete Hegseth at Defense and others (often billionaires) who, on the face of it, are remarkably unqualified to occupy those positions.

Do his MAGA supporters rejoice? Probably so far. Wait until the cuts begin to bite for ordinary Americans.

An ineffective Republican Party refuses to stand up to Trump. Instead of holding the Executive to account—one of the principal roles of Congress—lily-livered Republicans just say ‘How high, Mr President?‘ when Trump says ‘Jump!‘

The blatantly illegal actions he has already taken through a mountain of Executive Orders are being challenged in the courts. But will Trump obey court orders? It seems not, if we take him at his word in a comment posted on 15 February on Truth Social. What a dangerous attitude and precedent!

During his first term, 2017-2021, I wrote quite a number of blogs decrying Trump and all he stood for. Just click on the red boxes to open these stories.

With regard to that last post, I certainly got it wrong – as did many others. This was written just a month before Trump’s attempted insurrection on 6 January 2021. We thought we’d seen the last of him. How wrong we were.

In writing this story, I broke a promise to myself. How’s that? Well, once it became apparent that Trump was headed for an election victory last November, I vowed I wouldn’t post anything on my blog as I had before. But it has been such a whirlwind of bad news since 20 January, I just couldn’t help myself. This cartoon (which I saw on BlueSky) sums up how I feel about the whole situation.

Were it not for the fact that our elder daughter and family live in Minnesota (who we will visit later this year as we have done regularly over the past 15 years, apart from the Covid years), I think I’d give the USA a wide berth over the next four years. Having said that, Steph and I have encountered friendliness and courtesy everywhere we have traveled around that country. Will that have changed as attitudes and positions, for and against Trump, become increasingly polarised?

A last comment. My car lease contract (on a Ford Kuga diesel) terminates in less than a year, and I will certainly take out another lease on a new car, more than likely an EV this time. One thing’s for certain: it WON’T be a Tesla!

¹ Here are some examples:

 

by

The Commonwealth Potato Collection – it really is a treasure trove (revised and updated)*

I originally wrote this story in August 2021 after a friend and former colleague, Dr Glenn Bryan¹ posted a link on his Facebook page to a story—Treasure trove could hold secrets to potato problems—that had just appeared in the online edition of Dundee’s The Courier.

It was about the Commonwealth Potato Collection (CPC) that is held at The James Hutton Institute (JHI) at Invergowrie, just west of Dundee.

Until a couple of years ago (when he retired) Glenn led the Potato Genetics and Breeding Group at JHI, with Gaynor McKenzie as the CPC curator, a position she still occupies.

Glenn Bryan and Gaynor McKenzie at the James Hutton Institute in Invergowrie, where wild potato species in the Commonwealth Potato Collection are conserved.

The Commonwealth Potato Collection has a long and distinguished history, going back more than 80 years. It is one of a handful of potato germplasm collections around the world in which breeders have identified disease and pest resistance genes to enhance the productivity of cultivated varieties. The CPC is particularly important from a plant quarantine perspective because the collection has been routinely tested and cleaned for various pathogens, particularly seed-borne pathogens.

Jack Hawkes

It is a collection with which Steph and I have both a personal and professional connection, from the 1970s and 80s. It’s also the legacy of one man, Professor Jack Hawkes (1915-2007) with whom I had the privilege of studying for both my MSc and PhD degrees.

Let me tell that story.

In December 1938, a young botanist—just 23 years old the previous June—set off from Liverpool, headed to Lima, Peru to join the British Empire Potato Collecting Expedition to South America, the adventure of a lifetime.

Jack in Bolivia in 1939

John ‘Jack’ Gregory Hawkes, a Christ’s College, Cambridge graduate, was destined to become one of the world’s leading potato experts and a champion of the conservation and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.

He was the taxonomic botanist on the 1939 expedition, which was led by experienced plant collector Edwards Kent Balls (1892-1984). Medical doctor and amateur botanist William ‘Bill’ Balfour Gourlay (1879-1966) was the third member of the expedition. Balls and Gourlay had been collecting plants in Mexico (including some potatoes) in 1938 before moving on to Peru for the ‘Empire’ expedition.

The expedition had originally been scheduled to start in 1937, but had to be delayed because of ill health of the original expedition leader, Dr PS Hudson, Director of the Empire Bureau of Plant Breeding and Genetics in Cambridge. Jack had been hired as his assistant.

Whilst waiting for the expedition to get underway, Jack took the opportunity—in August 1938—to visit Leningrad to pick the brains of Russian botanists, Drs SM Bukasov, VS Juzepczuk, and VS Lechnovicz who had already collected potatoes in South America. Jack openly acknowledged that ‘as a raw recently graduated student, [he] knew very little about potatoes’.

Nikolai Vavilov

Not only did Jack receive useful advice from these knowledgeable botanists, but he also met with the great geneticist and ‘Father of Plant Genetic Resources’ Nikolai Vavilov on several occasions during his visit to Leningrad and Moscow, ‘an experience that changed [his] life in many ways’. Vavilov had a profound effect on Jack’s subsequent career as an academic botanist and genetic resources pioneer. Alas there do not appear to be any surviving photos of Jack with Vavilov.

‘Solanum vavilovii’ growing at an experiment station near Leningrad in 1938

In Leningrad, Jack took this photo (right) of a wild potato species that had been described as Solanum vavilovii by Juzepczuk and Bukasov in 1937. Sadly that name is no longer taxonomically valid, and vavilovii is now considered simply as a variant of the species Solanum wittmackii that had been described by the German botanist Friedrich August Georg Bitter in 1913.

The Empire expedition lasted eight months from January 1939, covering northern Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and ending in Colombia (a country where Jack was to reside for three years from 1948 when he was seconded to establish a national potato research station near Bogota).

Route taken by the Empire Potato Collecting Expedition

More than 1150 samples of cultivated and wild potatoes were collected in these five countries as well as a further 46 samples collected by Balls and Gourlay in Mexico in 1938.

Here is a small selection of photographs taken during the expedition (and a link to an album of photos).

By the time the expedition ended in early September 1939, war with Germany had already been declared, and Jack’s return to the UK by ship convoy from Halifax, Newfoundland was not as comfortable as the outbound voyage nine months earlier, docking in Liverpool early in November.

Jack published an official expedition report in March 1941. Then, in 2003, he published an interesting and lengthy memoir of the expedition, Hunting the Wild Potato in the South American Andes.

In December 2021, my friend Dr Abigail Amey and I published a website (with permission of the Hawkes family) about Jack’s experiences of the 1938-39 expedition, as well as others to the USA, Mexico, and Central America in 1958, and Bolivia in 1971. Just click on the red box below (and others) to open the links.

The website also has several of Jack’s original 16mm films (which we were able to digitise through a special grant from the Crop Wild Relatives Project at Kew and the Crop Trust).

Redcliffe N Salaman

Potato tubers (and presumably seeds) were shipped back to the UK, and after a quarantine inspection, were planted out in a glasshouse at the Potato Virus Research Station, Cambridge whose director was the renowned botanist (and originally a medical doctor) Redcliffe Nathan Salaman, author of the seminal work on potatoes, The History and Social Influence of the Potato, first published in 1949 and reprinted with a new introduction by Hawkes in 1985. I jealously guard the signed copy that Jack gave me.

On his return to the UK in 1939 Jack began to study the collected germplasm, describing several new species, and completing his PhD thesis (supervised by Salaman) at the University of Cambridge in 1941.

South American potato species in the Cambridge glasshouse in the summer of 1940

Among the species identified in the course of Jack’s dissertation research was Solanum ballsii from northern Argentina, which he dedicated to EK Balls in a formal description in 1944. However, in his 1963 revised taxonomy of the tuber-bearing Solanums (potatoes), Jack (with his Danish colleague Jens Peter Hjerting, 1917-2012) recognized Solanum ballsii simply as a subspecies of Solanum vernei, a species which has since provided many important sources of resistance to the potato cyst nematode.

Jack Hawkes in the glasshouse of the Empire Potato Collection at Cambridge in July 1947.

The 1939 germplasm was the foundation of the Empire Potato Collection. When the collection curator Dr Kenneth S Dodds was appointed Director of the John Innes Institute in Bayfordbury in 1954, the collection moved with him, and was renamed the Commonwealth Potato Collection.

By the end of the decade (or early 1960s) the CPC was on the move again. This time to the Scottish Plant Breeding Station (SPBS) at Pentlandfield just south of Edinburgh when Dr Norman W Simmonds moved there in 1959. He rose through the ranks to become the station’s Director.

Dodds and his colleague Dr GJ Paxman traveled through South America during 1959-60, and their research on the genetics of diploid potatoes was based on some of the material collected. Dodds and Simmonds also collected potatoes in early 1963.

Dodds with Peruvian botanist Cesar Vargas
Dodds with Bolivian botanist Martin Cardenas in Cochabamba

But that was not the end of the CPC’s peripatetic existence. It remained at the SPBS until the early 1980s, when the SPBS amalgamated with the Scottish Horticultural Research Institute (which became the Scottish Crop Research Institute or SCRI, and now known as the James Hutton Institute), and the collection moved to its present site near Dundee.

Today, the CPC comprises some 1500 samples or accessions of about 80 wild and cultivated potato species. And over two-thirds were collected by Hawkes himself. Another 9% of the collection were collected by Dodds and his colleagues, as mentioned earlier. The remainder represent donations over the years from various individuals and institutions.

I am not sure how much the CPC grew in the intervening years, but there was a significant boost to the size and importance of the collection around 1987. Let me explain.

As I already mentioned, Jack spent three years in Colombia from 1948, returning to the UK in 1951 when he was appointed Lecturer in Taxonomy in the Department of Botany at the University of Birmingham. He was given a personal chair as Professor of Taxonomic Botany in April 1961, and became Head of Department and Mason Professor of Botany in July 1967. He remained at Birmingham until retirement in September 1982.

It was during his Birmingham years that Jack’s work on the tuber-bearing Solanums expanded significantly with several important monographs and taxonomic revisions published, based on his own field work over the years and experimental studies back at Birmingham on the potato samples he brought back to the UK and which formed an important collection in its own right. Because of the quarantine threat from these seeds (particularly of sexually-transmitted pathogens or new variants of potato viruses already present in the UK), Jack had a special quarantine licence from the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF, now DEFRA) to maintain his collection at Birmingham.

In 1958, with Peter Hjerting and young research assistant Richard Lester (who later joined the Department of Botany as a Lecturer), Jack made a six month expedition to the USA , Mexico, and Central America.

Here is another account of that trip from the University of Birmingham Gazette. Besides potatoes, many other species were made for other institutions and botanic gardens.

Collecting a sample of Solanum agrimonifolium (No. 1854) in Guatemala. L: Jack Hawkes, Peter Hjerting, and Morse (driver?); R: Richard Lester

Just three months after I arrived at Birmingham in September 1970 to enrol on the MSc course on plant genetic resources, Jack was off on his travels once again, this time to Bolivia accompanied by Peter Hjerting once again, his research assistant Phil Cribb and, in South America by Zósimo Huamán from the International Potato Center (CIP) and Moisés Zavaleta and others from Bolivia.

This is the official trip report. Here are some images from the 1971 expedition, courtesy of Phil Cribb.

Jack and Peter made another trip to Bolivia in 1974 (with research assistant Dave Astley), and another in 1980. They published their monograph of The Potatoes of Bolivia in 1989.

In September 1971, Zósimo Huamán and Moisés Zavaleta came to Birmingham to study on the genetic resources MSc course. In that same cohort was a young botanist, Stephanie Tribble, recently graduated from the University of Wales – Swansea (now Swansea University). During the summer of 1972, Steph and I became ‘an item’, so-to-speak. However, by then I was already making plans to leave the UK and join CIP in Lima by January 1973, and on graduation, Steph was keen to find a position to use the experiences and skills she had gained on the course.

Just at that time, a Scientific Officer position opened at the SPBS, as assistant to Dalton Glendinning who was the curator of the CPC. Steph duly applied and was appointed from about October that year. Jack must have supported her application. Coincidentally, the MSc course external examiner was no other that Norman Simmonds who met Steph during his course assessment.

I moved to Peru in January 1973, and within a few days discovered that Jack had mentioned Steph to CIP’s Director General, Richard Sawyer. Well, to cut a long story short, Steph was offered a position as Assistant Geneticist at CIP, to support management of CIP’s large potato collection, similar to the role she’d had at Pentlandfield. She resigned from the SPBS and joined me in Lima in July that year. We married there in October, remaining with CIP in Peru and Central America for another eight years.

Steph working in one of CIP’s screen-houses at La Molina on the eastern outskirts of Lima in 1974.

In April 1981 I was appointed Lecturer in Plant Biology at Birmingham, 18 months before Jack’s retirement, the aim being that I would assume Jack’s teaching commitments on the MSc course. When I also took over the Hawkes potato collection in 1982, I had high hopes of identifying funding for biosystematics and pre-breeding research, and continuing the Birmingham focus on potatoes.

Dave Downing was the glasshouse technician who carefully managed the Hawkes collection at Birmingham for many years.

That was not the case, and as the collection needed a dedicated glasshouse and technician I could not justify (nor financially support) holding on to such valuable research space. And, in any case, continuing with the Hawkes collection was actually blocking the opportunities for other potato research because of the MAFF-imposed restrictions.

So, with some regret but also acknowledging that Jack’s collection would be better placed elsewhere, I contacted my colleagues at the CPC to see if they would be interested to receive it—lock, stock, and barrel. And that indeed was what happened. I’m sure many new potato lines were added to the CPC. The germplasm was placed in quarantine in the first instance, and has passed through various stages of testing before being added officially to the CPC. Throughout the 80s and 90s Jack would visit the CPC from time-to-time, and look through the materials, helping with the correct identification of species and the like.

Jack’s interest in and contributions to potato science remained with him almost up to his death in 2007. By then he had become increasingly frail, and had moved into a care home, his wife Barbara having passed away some years previously. By then, Jack’s reputation and legacy was sealed. Not only has his scientific output contributed to the conservation and use of potato genetic resources worldwide, embodied in the CPC that he helped establish all those decades earlier, but through the MSc course that he founded in 1969, hundreds of professionals worldwide have continued to carry the genetic conservation torch. A fine legacy, indeed!

¹ Glenn and I go back almost 30 years when, as a young scientist at the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich, he was a member of a rice research project, funded by the British government, that brought together staff at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines where I was Head of the Genetic Resources Center, the University of Birmingham (where I had been a faculty member for a decade from 1981), and the JIC to use molecular markers to study IRRI’s large and globally-important germplasm collection conserved in its International Rice Genebank.

L-R: me, Glenn, and John Newbury (who later became professor at the University of Worcester) during a spot of sight-seeing near IRRI in 1993.

  • Originally published on 24 August 2021.
by

When east meets west . . . music happens!

Steph and I are not into live music concerts. It’s never been our thing, but . . .

. . . when visiting our elder daughter Hannah in St Paul, Minnesota in June 2003, she had three tickets to see Fleetwood Mac at the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St Paul. And just after we returned to the UK in May 2010, we enjoyed a concert by Mark Knopfler at bp pulse LIVE (formerly the LG Arena) in Birmingham.

Before those two concerts it must have been almost 30+ years since I’d attended any live concert, while I was still at university.

So what changed the habit of a lifetime? Last night (4 February) we enjoyed a concert at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music (formerly Sage Gateshead) on Gateshead quayside beside the River Tyne—right across the river from Newcastle city center. It was our first visit there.

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music on the south bank of the River Tune, taken from the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

View west along the River Tyne from Baltic (a contemporary art center), with the Glasshouse International Centre for Music on the left, and the Millennium and Tyne Bridges (and others) connecting Gateshead with Newcastle on the right.

And the concert? Click on the banner below to open.

Just the one night in Gateshead, from a tour of eight venues between 31 January and 9 February. Tickets at just £39.40.

So why Transatlantic Sessions? We have been fans of this joyous fusion of Scottish, Irish, and American music since we first watched the various series on BBC4. Series 1 was broadcast in 1995, with subsequent series in 1998, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013, each comprising six programs. Here are the details of the programs and the many artists who have appeared over the years. This is what is written on the Sessions website:

. . . 2025 mark[s] 30 years since the original TV series first aired and continuing to explore and celebrate the rich musical traditions that connect Scotland, Ireland and the US. An annual focal point of Celtic Connections, the exclusive line-up combines guest singers and the celebrated house band, inviting them to interweave original material with age-old tunes and songs as they explore shared roots and find new common ground.

Here is just a sample of what you can enjoy. The complete series can also be viewed on YouTube, and listened to on Spotify (which I’m doing right now as I write this!). I came across Iris de Ment, who appeared on the first series, when viewing those videos.

Coordinated by musical co-directors Aly Bain MBE, a renowned fiddler from Shetland, and Jerry Douglas, a virtuoso dobro (resonator guitar) player from Ohio and a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station, the house band for 2025 had an impressive line-up, several regulars from the TV series, and some new faces as well.

Jerry Douglas (left) and Aly Bain (right).

The Transatlantic Sessions house band. L-R: Donald Shaw, Aly Bain, Daniel Kimbro, Phil Cunningham, Jerry Douglas, Allison de Groot, Michael McGoldrick, Tatiana Hargreaves, John Doyle, John McCusker, and James Mackintosh.

Old timers were John McCusker (fiddle), Michael McGoldrick (whistle, Irish flute, and uilleann or Irish pipes), Donald Shaw (piano, harmonium, and accordion), and James Mackintosh (drums). Phil Cunningham (accordion) was unable to participate last night due to some family issues.

Newcomers for 2025 were Allison de Groot (banjo) from Canada, Tatiana Hargreaves (fiddle) and Daniel Kimbro (electric and upright bass) from the USA, and John Doyle (guitar) from Ireland (who has appeared from time to time over the years). Daniel and John also performed solo self-penned songs.

Last night’s concert was a mix of house band sets interspersed by individual ones from the guest artists, who were for 2025:

L-R: Julie Fowlis, Niall McCabe, and Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams.

Singer Julie Fowlis (whistle, bagpipes) was born in North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. In fact, she comes from the village of Hougharry on the west coast (so I was told), which I visited in 1966 and 1967, and returned there with Steph in 2015. In last night’s show, she sang several songs in Gaelic, and joined the house band on the whistle and, at the end of the show, playing the bagpipes.

Here she is singing (and playing the pipes) Hug Air a’ Bhinaid Mhoir (recorded in Glasgow at the start of the 2025 tour just a few nights ago), to great audience acclaim last night.

Irish singer-songwriter Niall McCabe was born on Clare Island off the coast of Co. Mayo in Ireland and sang his own material.

Larry Campbell (electric guitar, mandolin) and Teresa Williams (vocals) are a dynamic duo from the USA, hailing from New York and Tennessee, respectively. Besides performing their own mini-sets, Larry played in the house band, and Teresa provided backing vocals, even in Gaelic when Julie Fowlis was performing. Their gospel song in the second half was a tour de force.

And lastly, the inimitable Loudon Wainwright III, a larger-than-life performer who we first came across in the the late 1980s, when he guested on the 1987 BBC show Carrott Confidential, hosted by Birmingham-born comedian Jasper Carrott.

Here is Loudon singing one of my favorite songs, Harry’s Wall, which was released on his album Therapy in 1989.

Wainwright also appeared in three episodes of M*A*S*H, as singing surgeon Captain Calvin Spalding during 1974-1975. We caught up with those episodes when we were living in the Philippines during the 1990s.

In last night’s concert I particularly enjoyed Wainwright’s version of Harmless (or Hermless) by the late Dundee bard, Michael Marra (a great friend of his). Here’s a link to a version on Spotify that Wainwright has recorded.

The concert lasted almost three hours, with a short intermission. It was originally scheduled for a little longer, but since Phil Cunningham could not appear – who I assume would have had a couple of solo sets – it finished just before 22:30.

It began, as Jerry Douglas explained, with a set of three reels to get the band warmed up, so to speak. As if they needed it. No-one was reading from sheet music. How they keep all those tunes stored away in their minds!

One thing in particular, struck me. How everyone on stage worked together, more than the sum of the parts. If anyone had an ego, that was left at the Stage Door. Impressive.

Unfortunately there was no program, so I can’t provide details of the sets. We thoroughly enjoyed the mix of Scottish and Irish melodies (reels and the like), Appalachian, and gospel music, even contemporary compositions, blended with the backing from the house band. One of the most impressive performances was a song—in Gaelic—by Julie Fowlis, accompanied mostly by Donald Shaw on the harmonium.

The Sage One auditorium (holding >1600) was full. Sold Out! We had great center seats at the back of the auditorium.

The view from Row DD, Level 1.

An acquaintance of Facebook kindly sent me these photos that he took during the concert:

Jerry Douglas
Allison de Groot
Jerry Douglas
Loudon Wainwright III and the House Band
Niall McCabe
Julie Fowlis on bagpipes, with Tatiana Hargreaves and Allison de Groot
Jerry Douglas
Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams
Jerry Douglas and Larry Campbell
House Band
Jerry Douglas
Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams
Daniel Kimbro
Jerry Douglas
Loudon Wainwright III
Niall McCabe
Loudon Wainwright III
Julie Fowlis
Loudon Wainwright after the concert

Taking a bow . . .

Two final observations. It was interesting to ponder the demographics of the audience, very few under 50, and probably an average age in their 60s. Lots of grey heads, and (so I thought) a higher proportion of beards than you might see in the general population.

All too soon, 22:30 rolled round, and it was time for the encore. What a great evening, and such a pleasure to see these fine musicians live.

We look forward to Transatlantic Sessions returning to Gateshead in 2026.