This week the gang try to hold it together, and after Callum’s cardigan, Richard Negus’ suspicious lighting and an unexpected Tim Curry impression, they eventually get onto the question of how children actually learn about the countryside and whether enthusiasm has gone out of fashion.
Callum’s son taking a copy of The Field Junior into school sparks a wider conversation about field sports, conservation and what happens when teachers and parents are themselves increasingly disconnected from rural life. The three Richards – well, two Richards and Callum – talk about Natural History education, grandparents, letting children get muddy, learning where food comes from and whether enthusiasm is being quietly trained out of youngsters.
Along the way there are childhood fishing trips, bird spotting from the car, deer stalking with a three-year-old, wildfowling misery, whistling children, an unexpected meat-and-pest-control tour, and Callum’s ongoing campaign to hand fishing rods to any curious child who happens to wander past.
Essentially: how do you give children a connection to the countryside? Possibly by worrying less, letting them have a go and accepting that somebody is probably going to spill a pint of maggots.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.
You can contact us by email on: contact@countryslide.co.uk
Edited and Produced by Amy Green.
This transcript was generated using AI and may contain minor errors.
Richard Prideaux: Callum, you said you'd start.
Callum McInerney Riley: Oh yeah, I will.
Richard Negus: What's he doing?
Callum McInerney Riley: I took me. I took me.
Richard Negus: Cardigan off the window.
Callum McInerney Riley: My cardigan.
Richard Prideaux: Why can't you afford curtains? Why do you have to have clothing to use?
Callum McInerney Riley: Curtains. Curtains.
Richard Negus: That's what they say in Cornwall. Curtains.
Richard Prideaux: Wasn't that guy from Highlander?
Callum McInerney Riley: What a great intro this is. They're going to love that. They're going to think country slides back.
Richard Prideaux: No. Oh dear.
Callum McInerney Riley: Oh, sorry.
Richard Prideaux: Let's go.
Callum McInerney Riley: Oh, someone's put 50p in the meter.
Richard Negus: No, that's the security lights.
Callum McInerney Riley: Oh no. We're recording Richard's murder.
Richard Negus: It does come on a bit red, doesn't it?
Callum McInerney Riley: But the audio podcast, Richard's got a red light on when anyone enters the high street where he lives.
Richard Prideaux: He actually lives in Dagenham. Yeah. What are you wearing?
Callum McInerney Riley: You're wearing lingerie. Is that your next client?
Richard Negus: I'm a sweet transvestite. Well, no, Tim Curry's dead. I've got to fill his boots.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah.
Richard Negus: Fi High and PVC. Yes.
Callum McInerney Riley: Working man.
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly. So sorry, Callum, you were saying before you pulled your cardigan off from the window.
Callum McInerney Riley: I was, I was. I was going to say something that's actually PG-13. Really interesting thing happened. My son, we did a feature for the Field Junior. And the Field Junior is a supplement. So you might have picked one up at the game fair.
Richard Negus: Yes, OK.
Callum McInerney Riley: So you had those and you had the Field Junior. Field Junior, a little bit like the weak Junior. The intention is to have content that's geared towards sort of like 5 to 15 year olds, that kind of age group. And it's packed with really good content for young people to learn about the countryside, learn about conservation, all the different field sports and stuff like that. And it's educational and it's informative. Yes. I did a piece about bird ringing, which we spoke about on this podcast. I don't know what episode it is, but I'm sure if you search bird ringing and country slide, it'll probably come up. And I wrote the piece up. So there's lots of nice pictures and it's like a step by step thing of what happens and why it happens for young people. that lets you know what bird ringing is, that there are boots on the ground conservationists that are doing this stuff. And also it's quite nice that they can see that it's not just people that are inclined to shoot quarry that are protecting and conserving the world.
Richard Prideaux: This is podcast gold.
Callum McInerney Riley: So my son took this to school to show his teacher and they were quite happy to show the content of bird ringing and then every single piece in there, there's a few bits about butterflies and stuff like that, but the teacher didn't want to share any of the other content in there because there was things about field sports and all the other stuff that was in there and she couldn't kind of vet the content and I just had a It's just really interesting that rather than tackle any of the issues, it was just a blanket. No, you don't need to see this. Just don't look at anything else. You can see this bit with the birds. Yeah. And then the rest of it, goes away. It is hidden. Isn't that interesting? How do we teach young people? And if the adults that are teaching this stuff also can't then be responsible for taking a critical view of the countryside and then tackling some of the assumptions they might have. It was such an interesting thing. I was like, oh, did you have a look at any of the other content, mate? And he's like, no, because there's shooting in it. So we didn't look at it.
Richard Negus: It's an interesting fear. that I think a number of people have got, and I think it's a justified one, about the upcoming Natural History GCSE, is that there is a fear that the syllabus will be dumbed down, funnelled in a direction whereby.
Callum McInerney Riley: I think the nuance is terrible, isn't it?
Richard Negus: Well, indeed.
Richard Prideaux: So rather than leaving it to the States to sort of do the first education of children, it should lie with the parents. I think it's probably a safe. Yeah, I'd say that's fair. So a couple of weeks ago, Amy and I had to go to the, this is hard to say even when sober, the Anglesey Sea Zoo.
Richard Negus: Anglesey Sea Zoo.
Richard Prideaux: So it's, yeah, which is not a Chinese philosopher.
Callum McInerney Riley: Sizu. Wasn't he the one in Lion King? There's a real, we do nice jokes on here. There's a very small percentage who got that joke.
Richard Prideaux: So it's basically an aquarium, but it's only got local wildlife. So it's like, it's right next to the sea. So they've just dragged a load of things out of the Menai Straits there and put them in tanks.
Richard Negus: Local people, local wildlife.
Richard Prideaux: And they got sort of a lobster hatchery project and loads of other conservation projects. So we were there doing stuff there. But I noticed something because it was the summer holidays, it was a few weeks ago now, that the way parents interact with their children in public has got, they've sort of, everything's become very toned down over the last few years. I can't remember the last time I saw a parent out in public trying to match the enthusiasm of their child. They sort of act, it seems, on math like, the enthusiasm of their child is some annoyance to the wider world and they just like, yeah, there, calm down, don't do it. The parents are trying to be quite, I won't even say quite British about it, but very low key and they don't want the kids to have any enthusiasm in public. But that wasn't always the case, surely?
Richard Negus: I don't know. I mean, Charlie's now 15. And he's still enthusiastic about life in general. But I have to say, I don't think there was ever a point where the only thing that if he used to be, I mean, I can remember I once took him, because this is so typically me, is I took him to the V&A. Of course you did. Yes. And we were looking at some of the ancient sculptures in there. And I was showing Charlie, I said, look, then this is something that was carved in Rome, in Roman times. And I was pointing out to him, I said, look at that, they've done this out of marble. How on earth did they do with that? Those primitive tools. And some oik of a little sort of, he's chassayed over. And he said, can you make sure your son doesn't touch the exhibits? And I said, He's not. I said, it's my fingers that are near it, sort of showing the aquiline nose of this sculpture. Anyway, just make sure he doesn't. And I thought, well, you've just literally shattered any interest he might have had in ancient Rome there. So well done you, utter dullard. And so I did actually write a stinking review and they said, would you like to go and write a review about your thing? I said, yes, the pompous ***. who was in, when I managed to find out, I said, has completely shattered all my son's dreams about ancient Rome. So I let him run more or less Ryan. I did the same thing in the Saatchi gallery. He was laid underneath an exhibit and I've got a fantastic photograph. of him laid underneath an exhibit staring up. And again, some pompous *** went and said, could you ask him to stop doing that? And I thought, I bet the artist would have loved it, the fact that modern art had made him go, wow, this is really good. I want to stare at it. And with this big beaming smile on his face. And then some pompous git comes over and says, no, you've got to stop. So I think he's not just parents. I think he's with clipboard lanyards.
Callum McInerney Riley: I actually encourage my son to get spit balls into plastic shorts and spit them at priceless pieces of artwork because I too disagree.
Richard Prideaux: Just go and lick the Elgin marbles. What?
Callum McInerney Riley: I just I get them to test any priceless pieces of porcelain. I just get them to quickly test the structural integrity of the platforms they're still on.
Richard Prideaux: Just how wobbly is this? So.
Callum McInerney Riley: Jesus Christ, what just happened there?
Richard Prideaux: Richard Negus has just turned on every single light bulb in Suffolk that all are all festooned around the inside of his orangery.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah, the grid's just gone down.
Richard Negus: LED lights. What are you talking about?
Richard Prideaux: Sizewell just fired up just to power you.
Richard Negus: Well, I like to I like to go and keep the keep the French in their money.
Callum McInerney Riley: Jesus, I bet that's warmer than a data centre in there.
Richard Negus: They're LED lights, whatever they are. I don't know.
Richard Prideaux: They look like grow lights myself, you know, I think actually. Are you doing hydroponics?
Richard Negus: Of course, of course. This is Suffolk, you know, it's currency round here. I have to say, I think they're very attractive and they bring a certain ambience and a glow to the orangery.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. So a couple of weeks ago, someone else in the country slide WhatsApp chat was asking about how do we get this into schools? You're talking about sort of the relationship between game and shooting and conservation and so on. And it does seem like there's a sort of a generational disconnect between the people who have children now and the people who have older or grown up children. It seems to be, when I bring this up with people, they say, well, yes, but my children aren't like that. So yes, but your children are 23. And you also, you're a sample size of 1, but what are your observations of other people, other parents and other, how they interact with your children? Because how do you think, how do you think they're doing? How do you think we're doing generally in raising children, particularly in the conservation rural sector that we're talking about?
Callum McInerney Riley: Do you know, it's a very interesting one. I think the In my generation, we largely went with grandparents. We spent a lot of time with grandparents and I was always at my nan's and my mum had some freedom, my dad had some freedom and we'd sort of, we would largely be around other family members. And I think that this generation, the parents A lot of parents are working, so they end up in nurseries quite a lot of the time. And a lot of my friends in the six weeks holidays, they couldn't take time off work. So they're in summer camps or these sorts of things. And they don't necessarily, the grandparents are also working still because the people are working later. And there's a lot less of that kind of generational exposure where you go out with the older generation. So there's opportunities to like mix with your more institutionalized as a child. You go to summer camps and you go to after school clubs and you do all these different things, but you don't necessarily have these opportunities to go.
Richard Prideaux: It's ironic that we're being interrupted by your children screaming downstairs.
Richard Negus: Yes. Who's, what sort of parents have they got? I, do you know what? Okay, so you asked the question, what do the parents do? You know, so I think that's, I suppose, if Charlie's education in the countryside about how things work, I used to joke that, and he used to joke back at me, was that I used to do in the truck bird spotting. I'd say, what's that? And if he mistook a carrion crow for a rook or vice versa, I'd go, no! And he hated getting things wrong. So he learned the corvid species from birding out of the car going to the village school he was at. And the thing that I noticed was that I used to run a little gardening club for his village school he was at. And you realise that the kids knew absolutely nothing. This is a school of less than 100 kids, middle of an absolute farming village. And you think, surely they're going to know everything, but it's amazing how little they knew. And then you met their parents and you realise, they knew nothing about it. you go and say, they need to, can you get some seeds for them? And it was like you're asking them to go and get sort of ambrosia or something. It's like, well, where do I get them from? So I don't think it's location that's necessarily a problem. I do think there is just that there's been a generational lack of education and everything. You know, no one knows where their food comes from. I'm A slightly older parent than most. didn't do home economics at school, that was for women to do. But I think we've got multi-generational now where we have completely avoided the importance of food. So therefore you avoid the importance of farming. So therefore you avoid probably the importance of the countryside and you avoid the importance of the flora and fauna that's on your own doorstep. Because I think the most of this generation of parents now who have got youngsters of perhaps sort of, before senior school age, they will have grown up on a diet of watching Attenborough go to every single corner of the planet other than the UK. Now you might say, well, what about Packham? He's done brilliant stuff, you know, with Spring Watch and Autumn Watch and stuff like that. And there is some element of the fact that He's so bloody tedious that I don't think he was attractive to young people. And there's so many channels on TV that they're not going to be glued to Autumn Watch and Spring Watch. So I just think there's been a disconnect of their parents and even their grandparents. You know, I'm 55. I could be a grandfather. And so theoretically only because I'm interested in wildlife because I was bought up by a family who were interested in wildlife themselves. So I think it's a generational disconnect of at least two generations, now into three, that are so disconnected on the whole that your teacher, your, you know, Xavier's teacher's reaction of recoiling in horror from shooting is almost one that is ingrained, probably was ingrained to her by her parents.
Richard Prideaux: Callum, you're sort of on a journey of self-discovery constantly through life, it seems. Every week you're trying a new skill.
Callum McInerney Riley: Somebody referred to me the other day as a professional side quester, which I quite enjoyed.
Richard Prideaux: Are you a professional side quest completer?
Callum McInerney Riley: Most of the time, yeah. I get them done, put the invoice out, move on to whatever the next thing is. Sure, I'll take a video of a dog on a service station on the M5. You just let me know the time and I'll be there.
Richard Prideaux: So in your side questing and in your constant sort of search for novelty to make sure that the voices in your brain don't get out, do you take your children with you on that journey? Do you go and learn about things with the children? Do you sort of say, or do you try and learn about it and then share it with them?
Callum McInerney Riley: Yes, and naturally I think everybody should be exactly like me. I was really conscious in the first bit of not to not to basically filter my opinions through my own experience because I've realized I am strange but I find, I just want to, and my dad did this for me, right? My dad took me metal detecting and let me have huge amounts of unstructured play time where I would just like, we'd go to like the banks of somewhere fishing and maybe I'd fish for an hour, maybe I'd build Maybe I'd use the net to catch minnows and sticklebacks and then try and keep some roach in a keep net and feed the maggots or catch frogs or do all of this stuff that a bored sort of eight-year-old would do. So I always think that genuinely, if you can engage children as much as you can in all of the different things, if you can take them on a driven day. If you can, my son was about, I think it was 3 1/2 when I first took him deer stalking. That sounds quite extreme, but I took him out. You know, we quietly went up a ride. He loved collecting feathers. He understood what was going on. I think we saw a roebuck and he was very quiet. He liked it. The roebuck was out of season, didn't shoot it. And yeah, we just having, knowing where his food comes from, engaging in the countryside, not knowing that rabbits and badgers and all these things exist in these places. You might not see them, but this is where they are. This is the habitat they live in. I think it's really important for kids to know. So I give those opportunities to my children. But I appreciate I'm not the, firstly, for most people that aren't in the position that I'm in, it's basically impossible to do. I've got a field with a badger set down the bottom and rabbits. You can't just go wandering around looking for badger sets in the middle of.
Richard Prideaux: We can go looking for them, you won't find any.
Callum McInerney Riley: Well, you might find a few. I could probably point you to some general areas.
Richard Prideaux: If you go around the bottom of Harlow asking for badger, people are thinking it's some sort of st drug.
Richard Negus: They haven't heard of yet. Yeah, exactly. Is they like doves? I mean, I think it's an interesting thing if you think about it, is that not everybody is actually fascinated by wildlife. And so therefore, Yes, they are. And I don't think, I mean, you think my mother is now 90 yet and grew up in a tiny little fishing town on the far, far east of Suffolk. And yet she'd still go, I can't, gut fish. And that was the whole thing. You know, it's, there is still. Some people, and I suppose it's probably back to that almost primeval thing, that there were some people in the tribe, a select number, who were the hunters, there were the others who were the gatherers, there were the ones who did the skinning, you know, everyone had a role. So I think this idea that we've all lost a disconnect is probably true, but there would be some who have a greater connection and what that is in your psyche or your psychosis or whatever it is that's made you so that I want to take some time to study that thing is interesting. I mean, I think what's his name? Ortega, the philosopher, the Spanish philosopher. He claims and wrote a book called Thoughts on Hunting. And so although he wasn't per se, he was a a lot of Spaniards, he was sort of would take a gun. But he wrote a very famous philosopher of the 1930s and 20s. And he wrote that the hunter has a more ingrained knowledge of nature because they are nature, whereas he called them the tourist is merely an observer. Much the same as Aldo Leopold, you know, he said there are people who live on the land and there are those who live by the land and the people who live by the land are more ingrained in it. Now, we're in this country, it's an 80-20 split. So 80% live in the towns, 20% live in the countryside, yet the people who live in the countryside, only 1.4% of that 20% are in any shape or form directly employed on the land. So I reckon we're probably growing further and further away because if you believe what Ortega and Leopold said is unless you live by the land rather than just on it, then you're not going to have that inbuilt ingrained interest and fascination in it, I guess.
Richard Prideaux: Did you sort of seek the help of other parents as well when you were raising Charlie? Or did you sort of keep in a box at the bottom of the garden and do it?
Richard Negus: Do you know my wife Claire, she used to pick the brains of her now sadly late dad Joe, who was a lovely man. And she said that some of her fondest memories that she had, he was a racing journalist, And he used to be quite happy to go and stop writing and go and take her out for a bimble off and he'd light his pipe and go and wander off and they would go and sort of pick blackberries or stare at things out in fields. And he was a very good steadying hand. So I think sometimes she used to pick his brains. For me, no, I didn't because I treated Charlie I used to annoy the wick off Claire, was I always equated them to either dogs, Charlie, to either a dog or a horse.
Callum McInerney Riley: Did you whistle him and did you feed him small cubes of cheese or?
Richard Negus: It's the whistling bit. It was quite funny. He came out of school when he was about four or five and he went to run off and down the lane to where the Land Rover was parked and there was a tiny little rd he had to cross. And him and his little mate were running towards this road trying to beat one another. And they didn't, I could tell the speed they were running, they're not going to stop. So I went, and he stopped like he was shot. And this other mum whose other child ran straight across the road said, you really shouldn't whistle at your son. And I said, mine stopped. I said, yours will be flattened if a tractor had come around that corner.
Richard Prideaux: Weird one onsmanship.
Callum McInerney Riley: There's There's so much in the countryside that's unsafe. So it makes it unsafe or potentially unsafe. Potentially unsafe. It needs to be. It also needs to be quiet, which is quite hard. And often it's kind of gentlemanly and leisurely. So children in those situations don't really work out. So they're excluded for a lot of things in the countryside just because they don't work out. Even if you do have a child like mine that is basically a spaniel. So anything where a spaniel fits in, they can.
Richard Negus: I would disagree with you there, Callum. One of the things that Charlie enjoys the most and people enjoy most about having Charlie is that they almost say, let him come with me, Richard. And if he's going out beating, a lot of these old boys who are now probably grandparents age, they want to go because they want the desperate lead because they see a young person who's interested and keen in what they love. And it's like everyone wants to dad them. They all want to go, come on, Charlie, you come with me. And they'll show him something.
Callum McInerney Riley: So Driven Day, out of all of the countryside activities, Driven Day is Yeah, But you can't take them at 4am fox shooting. It probably wouldn't work.
Richard Prideaux: Some people do. I assure you some people do.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah, deer stalking, chainsaw work, many of the countryside activities. You can, but for the everyday person, probably not great to take your Kids do.
Richard Negus: I had Charlie Charlie out wildfowling with me and he absolutely hated every second of it.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah. He can't even get sick.
Richard Prideaux: Not in the article he didn't. He loved it.
Richard Negus: No, out wildfowling is one of the few things. Well, I wrote a lengthy series. Patrick Galbraith had me, it was nearly two years, I think it was, literally on this subject. And of all the things that we did, wildfowling was the one thing he went, nah, not for me, not for me. And I've got a photograph of him coming off the marsh. He has got, I think because A, they get cold a lot easier than adults do. And I had more layers on him. I mean, he looked like a flipping Michelin man, poor old boy, but he really didn't enjoy it. was a very quiet flight. Not a lot came over, no boring. He enjoyed pigeon shooting, so he didn't find the sat around waiting. The thing he enjoyed most bizarrely was going around and checking the traps each morning. So he liked to go and sort of see if we'd caught some rats.
Callum McInerney Riley: That's great because that not only is that quite engaging for him, but it's also he was learning about conservation and what the impact of those things that you're trying to trap on the wider environment. So that's like, that's so enriching for him.
Richard Negus: Do you know one of the funniest things? If we're going to talk about this as young people, I'm going to give one of the stories away in the book, which is quite funny. We had a, when he was at prep school, he had a little mate called Gleb who was a Ukrainian refugee. And he used to come over to us quite a bit. And I took him to Flea Barm, young Gleb and Charlie. And we said, oh, we're going to go and see what we're doing here. And Gleb was, quite keen. He thought this was all, this is all going to be quite fun. And we said, Gleb likes wildlife. He loves animals. And so we took him off and we checked some traps and we found a couple of dead rats in one. And then in one we pulled out a squirrel and he clutched this squirrel to his chest like it was a teddy bear. And then we went on, checked sheep. and he wanted to go and cuddle the sheep. And I was going, no, and all the sheep ran off like sheep do. And then I said, no, they don't really want to be cuddled and whatnot. And then we went around and I sort of pointed at hedges and he liked the butterflies, but he wasn't that interested in hedges. And I said, oh, what we're doing this all for is the grey partridge. I said, very, very rare bird, very rare bird. And this is all for them. All these efforts, everything you see around you is all focused on the grey partridge. And then eventually we saw, I think a hen and she had 3 young with her. And I went, it's for them. And he went, what? He goes, what them? He goes, they're rare. And I went, yeah. I said, the English partridge is something that's called the grey partridge. And I went, yeah. I said, do you know them? And he goes, yeah, they're everywhere in Ukraine. He goes, they're not rare. And I went, no. And so anyway, so we did some of our very, I said, should we go and shoot some rats underneath feeder? And he went, sort of looked at me, went, no, I don't think that's going to happen. So took him off to the butchers in Debenham and Charlie used to love going in there because they used to do these sort of turnovers with us a bit of chilli jam, some bacon, some cheese. I said, would you like one of those, Claire? And he went, no, And he had a cheese and onion pasty. And we got back home and I said to Claire, I said, Poor Gleb. I said, I really think war has ruined him. I said, I just think he's seen too much death. And I told her about the squirrel and the trap. And we hugged that and he wouldn't let go and wanted to hug all the sheep and went to the butchers. And Jamie the butcher said, would you like to come to the cold store and come and see the stock hanging up all dead in there? And Charlie went, yeah. And Gleb went, no, And I said, I just think he's seen too much death. And she went, no, you mug, you've forgotten he's a vegetarian. yeah. my amateur diagnosis of PTSD was actually just my short-term memory loss, but I'd forgotten that Gleb was a vegetarian.
Callum McInerney Riley: So, you think of veggie on a meat tour.
Richard Negus: Well, yeah, exactly. On every single thing. So cuddle the squirrel. Yeah. So there you go. I mean, there is that always also that is that he was only what, 11? and he had and he was already confirmed confirmed and it's not like soft Brits. He was a he came from up on the Belarusian border. So I mean I don't think they breed Ukrainians that wet. He just didn't like killing things.
Callum McInerney Riley: I reckon this year at least 10 kids I have got to catch their first fish.
Richard Prideaux: Ten different children, you're not just saying.
Callum McInerney Riley: Ten different children. Some have been friends' kids that are like, I'd like to kill a few hours. My son would like to try fishing and I just go down local lake, get some maggots, whatever it is, something really easy and we take them out. and we catch little roach, tench, carp, all that sort of stuff. And they absolutely love it. I posted a few of these in the WhatsApp group. But my favourite one is when you just catch families having a walk and you're there, they come round and they're just curious. They're out on a walk and they're just curious what you're doing. I've got like 2 kids running around, the dog's like jumping in the pond, whatever. And we're fishing. I say we're fishing, like we're putting rods in water. We're not really fishing. We're just something to do.
Richard Prideaux: Making hooks wet.
Callum McInerney Riley: But the kids are just fascinated by what's going on. And the amount of times you see them really, and it's often the kids are quite shy and very reserved. And they'll sort of look at you and you might catch a fish like a little roach or something. And then There's this sort of silence where you can see how engaged and curious they are. And then you just suddenly go, do you want to go? And sort of, I remember this little girl looked up at her dad, looked back at me, it's like, come on, you catch one then. And then she looks up at her dad and her dad's like, yeah, okay, go on then. And within like 10 minutes, They're getting pictures, they're catching these fish, they're swinging roach into their hand, and they're having just an amazing time. And it's literally as easy as just saying, do you fancy a go? And come on, have a go. I mean, there's zero stakes to it. You know, they can't break anything. Well, I mean, you could, but it's just like, my kids are doing it. You can do it. Why not have a go? And I think that's just It's just so good to be able to do that, to just pass a rod to a kid and then to just have such an engaging experience in and all it takes is just come on, have a go. It's brilliant.
Richard Prideaux: So you like sort of wholesome Pied Piper of Harlow?
Callum McInerney Riley: Exactly.
Richard Prideaux: Luring children down to the lakeside.
Richard Negus: He's Pied Piper of Harlow with maggot.
Callum McInerney Riley: They come to witness the chaos that is sort of 2 1/2 year old shouting, wiggle worm, wiggle worm while emptying most of a pint of maggots into the water. The dog chasing off a brood of mallard and Xavier probably using a pen knife to like dig a hole out of something or cut a tree down. Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: If you'd like to invite Callum McEnany, Riley and your family down to your conservation area, then you can invite to countryslide at scicountry.co.uk.
Callum McInerney Riley: Come for the show, stay for the fishing.
Richard Prideaux: Thank you very much, everyone. We'll be back next week for the main show, but we're going to go and record the after show now, which is just for patrons. So Callum, take us over the bridge into the after show, please.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah, let's make it happen.
Richard Prideaux: Callum, you said you'd start.
Callum McInerney Riley: Oh yeah, I will.
Richard Negus: What's he doing?
Callum McInerney Riley: I took me. I took me.
Richard Negus: Cardigan off the window.
Callum McInerney Riley: My cardigan.
Richard Prideaux: Why can't you afford curtains? Why do you have to have clothing to use?
Callum McInerney Riley: Curtains. Curtains.
Richard Negus: That's what they say in Cornwall. Curtains.
Richard Prideaux: Wasn't that guy from Highlander?
Callum McInerney Riley: What a great intro this is. They're going to love that. They're going to think country slides back.
Richard Prideaux: No. Oh dear.
Callum McInerney Riley: Oh, sorry.
Richard Prideaux: Let's go.
Callum McInerney Riley: Oh, someone's put 50p in the meter.
Richard Negus: No, that's the security lights.
Callum McInerney Riley: Oh no. We're recording Richard's murder.
Richard Negus: It does come on a bit red, doesn't it?
Callum McInerney Riley: But the audio podcast, Richard's got a red light on when anyone enters the high street where he lives.
Richard Prideaux: He actually lives in Dagenham. Yeah. What are you wearing?
Callum McInerney Riley: You're wearing lingerie. Is that your next client?
Richard Negus: I'm a sweet transvestite. Well, no, Tim Curry's dead. I've got to fill his boots.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah.
Richard Negus: Fi High and PVC. Yes.
Callum McInerney Riley: Working man.
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly. So sorry, Callum, you were saying before you pulled your cardigan off from the window.
Callum McInerney Riley: I was, I was. I was going to say something that's actually PG-13. Really interesting thing happened. My son, we did a feature for the Field Junior. And the Field Junior is a supplement. So you might have picked one up at the game fair.
Richard Negus: Yes, OK.
Callum McInerney Riley: So you had those and you had the Field Junior. Field Junior, a little bit like the weak Junior. The intention is to have content that's geared towards sort of like 5 to 15 year olds, that kind of age group. And it's packed with really good content for young people to learn about the countryside, learn about conservation, all the different field sports and stuff like that. And it's educational and it's informative. Yes. I did a piece about bird ringing, which we spoke about on this podcast. I don't know what episode it is, but I'm sure if you search bird ringing and country slide, it'll probably come up. And I wrote the piece up. So there's lots of nice pictures and it's like a step by step thing of what happens and why it happens for young people. that lets you know what bird ringing is, that there are boots on the ground conservationists that are doing this stuff. And also it's quite nice that they can see that it's not just people that are inclined to shoot quarry that are protecting and conserving the world.
Richard Prideaux: This is podcast gold.
Callum McInerney Riley: So my son took this to school to show his teacher and they were quite happy to show the content of bird ringing and then every single piece in there, there's a few bits about butterflies and stuff like that, but the teacher didn't want to share any of the other content in there because there was things about field sports and all the other stuff that was in there and she couldn't kind of vet the content and I just had a It's just really interesting that rather than tackle any of the issues, it was just a blanket. No, you don't need to see this. Just don't look at anything else. You can see this bit with the birds. Yeah. And then the rest of it, goes away. It is hidden. Isn't that interesting? How do we teach young people? And if the adults that are teaching this stuff also can't then be responsible for taking a critical view of the countryside and then tackling some of the assumptions they might have. It was such an interesting thing. I was like, oh, did you have a look at any of the other content, mate? And he's like, no, because there's shooting in it. So we didn't look at it.
Richard Negus: It's an interesting fear. that I think a number of people have got, and I think it's a justified one, about the upcoming Natural History GCSE, is that there is a fear that the syllabus will be dumbed down, funnelled in a direction whereby.
Callum McInerney Riley: I think the nuance is terrible, isn't it?
Richard Negus: Well, indeed.
Richard Prideaux: So rather than leaving it to the States to sort of do the first education of children, it should lie with the parents. I think it's probably a safe. Yeah, I'd say that's fair. So a couple of weeks ago, Amy and I had to go to the, this is hard to say even when sober, the Anglesey Sea Zoo.
Richard Negus: Anglesey Sea Zoo.
Richard Prideaux: So it's, yeah, which is not a Chinese philosopher.
Callum McInerney Riley: Sizu. Wasn't he the one in Lion King? There's a real, we do nice jokes on here. There's a very small percentage who got that joke.
Richard Prideaux: So it's basically an aquarium, but it's only got local wildlife. So it's like, it's right next to the sea. So they've just dragged a load of things out of the Menai Straits there and put them in tanks.
Richard Negus: Local people, local wildlife.
Richard Prideaux: And they got sort of a lobster hatchery project and loads of other conservation projects. So we were there doing stuff there. But I noticed something because it was the summer holidays, it was a few weeks ago now, that the way parents interact with their children in public has got, they've sort of, everything's become very toned down over the last few years. I can't remember the last time I saw a parent out in public trying to match the enthusiasm of their child. They sort of act, it seems, on math like, the enthusiasm of their child is some annoyance to the wider world and they just like, yeah, there, calm down, don't do it. The parents are trying to be quite, I won't even say quite British about it, but very low key and they don't want the kids to have any enthusiasm in public. But that wasn't always the case, surely?
Richard Negus: I don't know. I mean, Charlie's now 15. And he's still enthusiastic about life in general. But I have to say, I don't think there was ever a point where the only thing that if he used to be, I mean, I can remember I once took him, because this is so typically me, is I took him to the V&A. Of course you did. Yes. And we were looking at some of the ancient sculptures in there. And I was showing Charlie, I said, look, then this is something that was carved in Rome, in Roman times. And I was pointing out to him, I said, look at that, they've done this out of marble. How on earth did they do with that? Those primitive tools. And some oik of a little sort of, he's chassayed over. And he said, can you make sure your son doesn't touch the exhibits? And I said, He's not. I said, it's my fingers that are near it, sort of showing the aquiline nose of this sculpture. Anyway, just make sure he doesn't. And I thought, well, you've just literally shattered any interest he might have had in ancient Rome there. So well done you, utter dullard. And so I did actually write a stinking review and they said, would you like to go and write a review about your thing? I said, yes, the pompous ***. who was in, when I managed to find out, I said, has completely shattered all my son's dreams about ancient Rome. So I let him run more or less Ryan. I did the same thing in the Saatchi gallery. He was laid underneath an exhibit and I've got a fantastic photograph. of him laid underneath an exhibit staring up. And again, some pompous *** went and said, could you ask him to stop doing that? And I thought, I bet the artist would have loved it, the fact that modern art had made him go, wow, this is really good. I want to stare at it. And with this big beaming smile on his face. And then some pompous git comes over and says, no, you've got to stop. So I think he's not just parents. I think he's with clipboard lanyards.
Callum McInerney Riley: I actually encourage my son to get spit balls into plastic shorts and spit them at priceless pieces of artwork because I too disagree.
Richard Prideaux: Just go and lick the Elgin marbles. What?
Callum McInerney Riley: I just I get them to test any priceless pieces of porcelain. I just get them to quickly test the structural integrity of the platforms they're still on.
Richard Prideaux: Just how wobbly is this? So.
Callum McInerney Riley: Jesus Christ, what just happened there?
Richard Prideaux: Richard Negus has just turned on every single light bulb in Suffolk that all are all festooned around the inside of his orangery.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah, the grid's just gone down.
Richard Negus: LED lights. What are you talking about?
Richard Prideaux: Sizewell just fired up just to power you.
Richard Negus: Well, I like to I like to go and keep the keep the French in their money.
Callum McInerney Riley: Jesus, I bet that's warmer than a data centre in there.
Richard Negus: They're LED lights, whatever they are. I don't know.
Richard Prideaux: They look like grow lights myself, you know, I think actually. Are you doing hydroponics?
Richard Negus: Of course, of course. This is Suffolk, you know, it's currency round here. I have to say, I think they're very attractive and they bring a certain ambience and a glow to the orangery.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. So a couple of weeks ago, someone else in the country slide WhatsApp chat was asking about how do we get this into schools? You're talking about sort of the relationship between game and shooting and conservation and so on. And it does seem like there's a sort of a generational disconnect between the people who have children now and the people who have older or grown up children. It seems to be, when I bring this up with people, they say, well, yes, but my children aren't like that. So yes, but your children are 23. And you also, you're a sample size of 1, but what are your observations of other people, other parents and other, how they interact with your children? Because how do you think, how do you think they're doing? How do you think we're doing generally in raising children, particularly in the conservation rural sector that we're talking about?
Callum McInerney Riley: Do you know, it's a very interesting one. I think the In my generation, we largely went with grandparents. We spent a lot of time with grandparents and I was always at my nan's and my mum had some freedom, my dad had some freedom and we'd sort of, we would largely be around other family members. And I think that this generation, the parents A lot of parents are working, so they end up in nurseries quite a lot of the time. And a lot of my friends in the six weeks holidays, they couldn't take time off work. So they're in summer camps or these sorts of things. And they don't necessarily, the grandparents are also working still because the people are working later. And there's a lot less of that kind of generational exposure where you go out with the older generation. So there's opportunities to like mix with your more institutionalized as a child. You go to summer camps and you go to after school clubs and you do all these different things, but you don't necessarily have these opportunities to go.
Richard Prideaux: It's ironic that we're being interrupted by your children screaming downstairs.
Richard Negus: Yes. Who's, what sort of parents have they got? I, do you know what? Okay, so you asked the question, what do the parents do? You know, so I think that's, I suppose, if Charlie's education in the countryside about how things work, I used to joke that, and he used to joke back at me, was that I used to do in the truck bird spotting. I'd say, what's that? And if he mistook a carrion crow for a rook or vice versa, I'd go, no! And he hated getting things wrong. So he learned the corvid species from birding out of the car going to the village school he was at. And the thing that I noticed was that I used to run a little gardening club for his village school he was at. And you realise that the kids knew absolutely nothing. This is a school of less than 100 kids, middle of an absolute farming village. And you think, surely they're going to know everything, but it's amazing how little they knew. And then you met their parents and you realise, they knew nothing about it. you go and say, they need to, can you get some seeds for them? And it was like you're asking them to go and get sort of ambrosia or something. It's like, well, where do I get them from? So I don't think it's location that's necessarily a problem. I do think there is just that there's been a generational lack of education and everything. You know, no one knows where their food comes from. I'm A slightly older parent than most. didn't do home economics at school, that was for women to do. But I think we've got multi-generational now where we have completely avoided the importance of food. So therefore you avoid the importance of farming. So therefore you avoid probably the importance of the countryside and you avoid the importance of the flora and fauna that's on your own doorstep. Because I think the most of this generation of parents now who have got youngsters of perhaps sort of, before senior school age, they will have grown up on a diet of watching Attenborough go to every single corner of the planet other than the UK. Now you might say, well, what about Packham? He's done brilliant stuff, you know, with Spring Watch and Autumn Watch and stuff like that. And there is some element of the fact that He's so bloody tedious that I don't think he was attractive to young people. And there's so many channels on TV that they're not going to be glued to Autumn Watch and Spring Watch. So I just think there's been a disconnect of their parents and even their grandparents. You know, I'm 55. I could be a grandfather. And so theoretically only because I'm interested in wildlife because I was bought up by a family who were interested in wildlife themselves. So I think it's a generational disconnect of at least two generations, now into three, that are so disconnected on the whole that your teacher, your, you know, Xavier's teacher's reaction of recoiling in horror from shooting is almost one that is ingrained, probably was ingrained to her by her parents.
Richard Prideaux: Callum, you're sort of on a journey of self-discovery constantly through life, it seems. Every week you're trying a new skill.
Callum McInerney Riley: Somebody referred to me the other day as a professional side quester, which I quite enjoyed.
Richard Prideaux: Are you a professional side quest completer?
Callum McInerney Riley: Most of the time, yeah. I get them done, put the invoice out, move on to whatever the next thing is. Sure, I'll take a video of a dog on a service station on the M5. You just let me know the time and I'll be there.
Richard Prideaux: So in your side questing and in your constant sort of search for novelty to make sure that the voices in your brain don't get out, do you take your children with you on that journey? Do you go and learn about things with the children? Do you sort of say, or do you try and learn about it and then share it with them?
Callum McInerney Riley: Yes, and naturally I think everybody should be exactly like me. I was really conscious in the first bit of not to not to basically filter my opinions through my own experience because I've realized I am strange but I find, I just want to, and my dad did this for me, right? My dad took me metal detecting and let me have huge amounts of unstructured play time where I would just like, we'd go to like the banks of somewhere fishing and maybe I'd fish for an hour, maybe I'd build Maybe I'd use the net to catch minnows and sticklebacks and then try and keep some roach in a keep net and feed the maggots or catch frogs or do all of this stuff that a bored sort of eight-year-old would do. So I always think that genuinely, if you can engage children as much as you can in all of the different things, if you can take them on a driven day. If you can, my son was about, I think it was 3 1/2 when I first took him deer stalking. That sounds quite extreme, but I took him out. You know, we quietly went up a ride. He loved collecting feathers. He understood what was going on. I think we saw a roebuck and he was very quiet. He liked it. The roebuck was out of season, didn't shoot it. And yeah, we just having, knowing where his food comes from, engaging in the countryside, not knowing that rabbits and badgers and all these things exist in these places. You might not see them, but this is where they are. This is the habitat they live in. I think it's really important for kids to know. So I give those opportunities to my children. But I appreciate I'm not the, firstly, for most people that aren't in the position that I'm in, it's basically impossible to do. I've got a field with a badger set down the bottom and rabbits. You can't just go wandering around looking for badger sets in the middle of.
Richard Prideaux: We can go looking for them, you won't find any.
Callum McInerney Riley: Well, you might find a few. I could probably point you to some general areas.
Richard Prideaux: If you go around the bottom of Harlow asking for badger, people are thinking it's some sort of st drug.
Richard Negus: They haven't heard of yet. Yeah, exactly. Is they like doves? I mean, I think it's an interesting thing if you think about it, is that not everybody is actually fascinated by wildlife. And so therefore, Yes, they are. And I don't think, I mean, you think my mother is now 90 yet and grew up in a tiny little fishing town on the far, far east of Suffolk. And yet she'd still go, I can't, gut fish. And that was the whole thing. You know, it's, there is still. Some people, and I suppose it's probably back to that almost primeval thing, that there were some people in the tribe, a select number, who were the hunters, there were the others who were the gatherers, there were the ones who did the skinning, you know, everyone had a role. So I think this idea that we've all lost a disconnect is probably true, but there would be some who have a greater connection and what that is in your psyche or your psychosis or whatever it is that's made you so that I want to take some time to study that thing is interesting. I mean, I think what's his name? Ortega, the philosopher, the Spanish philosopher. He claims and wrote a book called Thoughts on Hunting. And so although he wasn't per se, he was a a lot of Spaniards, he was sort of would take a gun. But he wrote a very famous philosopher of the 1930s and 20s. And he wrote that the hunter has a more ingrained knowledge of nature because they are nature, whereas he called them the tourist is merely an observer. Much the same as Aldo Leopold, you know, he said there are people who live on the land and there are those who live by the land and the people who live by the land are more ingrained in it. Now, we're in this country, it's an 80-20 split. So 80% live in the towns, 20% live in the countryside, yet the people who live in the countryside, only 1.4% of that 20% are in any shape or form directly employed on the land. So I reckon we're probably growing further and further away because if you believe what Ortega and Leopold said is unless you live by the land rather than just on it, then you're not going to have that inbuilt ingrained interest and fascination in it, I guess.
Richard Prideaux: Did you sort of seek the help of other parents as well when you were raising Charlie? Or did you sort of keep in a box at the bottom of the garden and do it?
Richard Negus: Do you know my wife Claire, she used to pick the brains of her now sadly late dad Joe, who was a lovely man. And she said that some of her fondest memories that she had, he was a racing journalist, And he used to be quite happy to go and stop writing and go and take her out for a bimble off and he'd light his pipe and go and wander off and they would go and sort of pick blackberries or stare at things out in fields. And he was a very good steadying hand. So I think sometimes she used to pick his brains. For me, no, I didn't because I treated Charlie I used to annoy the wick off Claire, was I always equated them to either dogs, Charlie, to either a dog or a horse.
Callum McInerney Riley: Did you whistle him and did you feed him small cubes of cheese or?
Richard Negus: It's the whistling bit. It was quite funny. He came out of school when he was about four or five and he went to run off and down the lane to where the Land Rover was parked and there was a tiny little rd he had to cross. And him and his little mate were running towards this road trying to beat one another. And they didn't, I could tell the speed they were running, they're not going to stop. So I went, and he stopped like he was shot. And this other mum whose other child ran straight across the road said, you really shouldn't whistle at your son. And I said, mine stopped. I said, yours will be flattened if a tractor had come around that corner.
Richard Prideaux: Weird one onsmanship.
Callum McInerney Riley: There's There's so much in the countryside that's unsafe. So it makes it unsafe or potentially unsafe. Potentially unsafe. It needs to be. It also needs to be quiet, which is quite hard. And often it's kind of gentlemanly and leisurely. So children in those situations don't really work out. So they're excluded for a lot of things in the countryside just because they don't work out. Even if you do have a child like mine that is basically a spaniel. So anything where a spaniel fits in, they can.
Richard Negus: I would disagree with you there, Callum. One of the things that Charlie enjoys the most and people enjoy most about having Charlie is that they almost say, let him come with me, Richard. And if he's going out beating, a lot of these old boys who are now probably grandparents age, they want to go because they want the desperate lead because they see a young person who's interested and keen in what they love. And it's like everyone wants to dad them. They all want to go, come on, Charlie, you come with me. And they'll show him something.
Callum McInerney Riley: So Driven Day, out of all of the countryside activities, Driven Day is Yeah, But you can't take them at 4am fox shooting. It probably wouldn't work.
Richard Prideaux: Some people do. I assure you some people do.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah, deer stalking, chainsaw work, many of the countryside activities. You can, but for the everyday person, probably not great to take your Kids do.
Richard Negus: I had Charlie Charlie out wildfowling with me and he absolutely hated every second of it.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah. He can't even get sick.
Richard Prideaux: Not in the article he didn't. He loved it.
Richard Negus: No, out wildfowling is one of the few things. Well, I wrote a lengthy series. Patrick Galbraith had me, it was nearly two years, I think it was, literally on this subject. And of all the things that we did, wildfowling was the one thing he went, nah, not for me, not for me. And I've got a photograph of him coming off the marsh. He has got, I think because A, they get cold a lot easier than adults do. And I had more layers on him. I mean, he looked like a flipping Michelin man, poor old boy, but he really didn't enjoy it. was a very quiet flight. Not a lot came over, no boring. He enjoyed pigeon shooting, so he didn't find the sat around waiting. The thing he enjoyed most bizarrely was going around and checking the traps each morning. So he liked to go and sort of see if we'd caught some rats.
Callum McInerney Riley: That's great because that not only is that quite engaging for him, but it's also he was learning about conservation and what the impact of those things that you're trying to trap on the wider environment. So that's like, that's so enriching for him.
Richard Negus: Do you know one of the funniest things? If we're going to talk about this as young people, I'm going to give one of the stories away in the book, which is quite funny. We had a, when he was at prep school, he had a little mate called Gleb who was a Ukrainian refugee. And he used to come over to us quite a bit. And I took him to Flea Barm, young Gleb and Charlie. And we said, oh, we're going to go and see what we're doing here. And Gleb was, quite keen. He thought this was all, this is all going to be quite fun. And we said, Gleb likes wildlife. He loves animals. And so we took him off and we checked some traps and we found a couple of dead rats in one. And then in one we pulled out a squirrel and he clutched this squirrel to his chest like it was a teddy bear. And then we went on, checked sheep. and he wanted to go and cuddle the sheep. And I was going, no, and all the sheep ran off like sheep do. And then I said, no, they don't really want to be cuddled and whatnot. And then we went around and I sort of pointed at hedges and he liked the butterflies, but he wasn't that interested in hedges. And I said, oh, what we're doing this all for is the grey partridge. I said, very, very rare bird, very rare bird. And this is all for them. All these efforts, everything you see around you is all focused on the grey partridge. And then eventually we saw, I think a hen and she had 3 young with her. And I went, it's for them. And he went, what? He goes, what them? He goes, they're rare. And I went, yeah. I said, the English partridge is something that's called the grey partridge. And I went, yeah. I said, do you know them? And he goes, yeah, they're everywhere in Ukraine. He goes, they're not rare. And I went, no. And so anyway, so we did some of our very, I said, should we go and shoot some rats underneath feeder? And he went, sort of looked at me, went, no, I don't think that's going to happen. So took him off to the butchers in Debenham and Charlie used to love going in there because they used to do these sort of turnovers with us a bit of chilli jam, some bacon, some cheese. I said, would you like one of those, Claire? And he went, no, And he had a cheese and onion pasty. And we got back home and I said to Claire, I said, Poor Gleb. I said, I really think war has ruined him. I said, I just think he's seen too much death. And I told her about the squirrel and the trap. And we hugged that and he wouldn't let go and wanted to hug all the sheep and went to the butchers. And Jamie the butcher said, would you like to come to the cold store and come and see the stock hanging up all dead in there? And Charlie went, yeah. And Gleb went, no, And I said, I just think he's seen too much death. And she went, no, you mug, you've forgotten he's a vegetarian. yeah. my amateur diagnosis of PTSD was actually just my short-term memory loss, but I'd forgotten that Gleb was a vegetarian.
Callum McInerney Riley: So, you think of veggie on a meat tour.
Richard Negus: Well, yeah, exactly. On every single thing. So cuddle the squirrel. Yeah. So there you go. I mean, there is that always also that is that he was only what, 11? and he had and he was already confirmed confirmed and it's not like soft Brits. He was a he came from up on the Belarusian border. So I mean I don't think they breed Ukrainians that wet. He just didn't like killing things.
Callum McInerney Riley: I reckon this year at least 10 kids I have got to catch their first fish.
Richard Prideaux: Ten different children, you're not just saying.
Callum McInerney Riley: Ten different children. Some have been friends' kids that are like, I'd like to kill a few hours. My son would like to try fishing and I just go down local lake, get some maggots, whatever it is, something really easy and we take them out. and we catch little roach, tench, carp, all that sort of stuff. And they absolutely love it. I posted a few of these in the WhatsApp group. But my favourite one is when you just catch families having a walk and you're there, they come round and they're just curious. They're out on a walk and they're just curious what you're doing. I've got like 2 kids running around, the dog's like jumping in the pond, whatever. And we're fishing. I say we're fishing, like we're putting rods in water. We're not really fishing. We're just something to do.
Richard Prideaux: Making hooks wet.
Callum McInerney Riley: But the kids are just fascinated by what's going on. And the amount of times you see them really, and it's often the kids are quite shy and very reserved. And they'll sort of look at you and you might catch a fish like a little roach or something. And then There's this sort of silence where you can see how engaged and curious they are. And then you just suddenly go, do you want to go? And sort of, I remember this little girl looked up at her dad, looked back at me, it's like, come on, you catch one then. And then she looks up at her dad and her dad's like, yeah, okay, go on then. And within like 10 minutes, They're getting pictures, they're catching these fish, they're swinging roach into their hand, and they're having just an amazing time. And it's literally as easy as just saying, do you fancy a go? And come on, have a go. I mean, there's zero stakes to it. You know, they can't break anything. Well, I mean, you could, but it's just like, my kids are doing it. You can do it. Why not have a go? And I think that's just It's just so good to be able to do that, to just pass a rod to a kid and then to just have such an engaging experience in and all it takes is just come on, have a go. It's brilliant.
Richard Prideaux: So you like sort of wholesome Pied Piper of Harlow?
Callum McInerney Riley: Exactly.
Richard Prideaux: Luring children down to the lakeside.
Richard Negus: He's Pied Piper of Harlow with maggot.
Callum McInerney Riley: They come to witness the chaos that is sort of 2 1/2 year old shouting, wiggle worm, wiggle worm while emptying most of a pint of maggots into the water. The dog chasing off a brood of mallard and Xavier probably using a pen knife to like dig a hole out of something or cut a tree down. Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: If you'd like to invite Callum McEnany, Riley and your family down to your conservation area, then you can invite to countryslide at scicountry.co.uk.
Callum McInerney Riley: Come for the show, stay for the fishing.
Richard Prideaux: Thank you very much, everyone. We'll be back next week for the main show, but we're going to go and record the after show now, which is just for patrons. So Callum, take us over the bridge into the after show, please.
Callum McInerney Riley: Yeah, let's make it happen.