Are things actually getting worse in the countryside, or are we just noticing what has quietly disappeared?
This week, Richard Prideaux, Richard Negus and Callum McInerney-Riley talk about access to the countryside, disappearing rural services and the difference between visiting rural Britain and actually living in it.
Callum looks back at his earliest memories of fishing and how his relationship with the countryside has changed, while the two Richards compare that with growing up surrounded by rural life. From there, the conversation moves onto village shops, post offices, buses, unreliable postal services and the lack of resilience that comes with living somewhere where everything is spread further apart.
Richard Negus then takes the scenic route through rural transport history and arrives at Sutton Hoo, Basil Brown and the question of whether one of Britain’s most famous archaeological discoveries would have been quite so easy to make today.
There are also detours into AI, long marriages, old branch lines, tiny trains, men in Lycra and the possibility that the modern countryside has replaced Basil Brown with baboons on Strava.
Richard and Amy will also be at the APF Exhibition at Ragley later this month, so if you spot the hand painted CountrySlide sign, come and say hello.
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: I think we've got a national emergency to discuss and that is the sudden arrival of every single seed head in the fur of every single dog around the United Kingdom. Because it just seems to be in the last week all the cleaver seeds, all the thistle seeds have just suddenly exploded and now in my dog's fur.
Richard Negus: I have to say my dogs have got fleas. and fleas are like everywhere. It's an absolute pain. They are relatively cleaver free, but they're like riddled with fleas. And thanks to the countryside WhatsApp group, I now know why. We can blame it on global warming because basically this hot summer has done stupid things to a fleas life cycle and they're now living in my lawn, well I say lawn, that sort of burnt parched stubble that passes for a lawn which is still out there. And apparently they're just living there waiting for a cocker spaniel to arrive and go, oh, just jump back on. Poor Claire has been there. Yeah, they're nothing. Has your dog got fleas, Calum?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Not that I know of. I should probably check, can I?
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum McInerney-Riley: But I did hear that because the the weather that we've had and the drought, the things like ticks, they just go from an area that is, they'll just find an area that's wet and live in an area that's wet. So it's not that there's going to be less of them necessarily, but they'll all be congregated into a single area because the environment has been inhospitable for them because it's been so warm.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, we've probably had a reduction in fungal infections over this summer and a rise in insects and ticks.
Richard Negus: Yes, that's, I mean, look, there's a, isn't that the ying and the yang of nature? Yes, exactly. My fungal infections have diminished and now, you know, the dogs are covered in fleas. It's, there you go, it's the circle of life as a lion once sang.
Richard Prideaux: There's something somewhere in the cocktail of drugs I was ingesting in the sort of the transition from winter to spring with my adventures. Something in there cleared up every nail fungal infection I've ever had.
Richard Negus: Really.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, I don't know which bit it was. It's like George's marvellous medicine. There's something in there they gave me that cleared everything up, but no one's quite sure why.
Richard Negus: Isn't that bizarre? I mean, I mean, I have to say, because courtesy of writing a book in this hottest summer on record, is that I should usually be like brown. And this bloody psoriasis that I have got has been absolutely bloody terrible, I have to say, this year. And it goes usually with vitamin D from the sun. And because I've been sat in, as you call it, the orangery, writing, I haven't had it and I've tried everything. And so I ordered some propolis from, well, it shows what a mug I am.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Is it from a coy aquarium place? Because that's what they usually use to treat aquatic animals.
Richard Negus: Shall I tell you, Callum, I am probably what's that? What's that thing you always you buy from Ali Alibaba?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, Ali AliExpress.
Richard Negus: Yeah, well, basically, I hadn't realized I saw, and I don't know how, because I don't sort of write about, oh, you'll see, I've got terrible psoriasis on my arms. I don't write that anywhere. So I reckon it's looking through the camera on my computer, right? And somehow or other, I suddenly got bombarded with all these things that looked like basically Richard Prido and producer Amy in a kitchen, right? Going, oh, it's so lovely to work together. I'm taking all these natural things together and I'm mixing them and I turn this thing and I don't know how it happens, but that clears up psoriasis no end. And of course, me, like a complete mug, went, oh, I'll buy that. And I ordered it and it arrived. And if a country kitchen is in China, that's where it's made. Because when I actually thought where it's made, it wasn't made by these people who I met on Instagram who looked very plausible. I ordered this. I don't know even if it's properly at all.
Callum McInerney-Riley: You got to the age where you have been fooled by an AI generated video. Is that what you're telling us?
Richard Negus: They look so normal. and they sounded slightly bad at being on being recorded. And so I'm sure that must be AI because they had no self-awareness. They were a bit crap. So someone said, make it sound like it's basically some Dorset farmer's wife who's stirring things in a kitchen and I bought it and I'm slathering this stuff on me. I'll be perfectly honest. Has it done anything? No. Well, it might have done, it might have sort of stripped the skin off because I should imagine the propolis is actually probably propane byproducts.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Well, does it look like you've just finished a Greg sausage roll on your desk after you've finished your writing session? Because that's a good tale.
Richard Negus: It's horrible.
Richard Prideaux: So this being fooled by AI thing, it's not necessarily new. But I think it does sort of creep over you slowly. So a friend of ours on a friend of the show, his mother disappears off on very exclusive tours of parts of the Himalayas and teaching people about art and all sorts of things there. He's a very fascinating, fascinating person. One of my favorite people on earth. But she was saying that she came home from one of her trips in the recent years where her husband was saying, yes, and so and so and so and so if this happened to so and so and so and so, there was the murder of course. And then there was this and then they're not going to get through this environmental health inspection. And anyway, this person said that and she was about 15 minutes into listening to this before she discovered he was talking about the archers. And he just delivered it as if it was village news. So I think we're only three steps from there for you, Richard.
Richard Negus: Yeah, well, that's basically it. Yes, I'm starting to think that some of the things I watch on Acorn TV are actually fly on the wall documentaries. Oh my God, I do hope the vet gets there in time for the breach birth calf. Yeah. Amazing, he drives a, he seems to be driving an Austin 7. But anyway, yeah, I know. But anyway, so my arms and forehead have been covered in Chinese knock-off propolis. I mean, maybe.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I feel like you're more susceptible to the ideas of the CCP.
Richard Negus: Well, I have found whenever I wake up in the morning, I'm always searching for a small red book. And I have a quick chant before I go out to work and I feel better about myself. turnips, they're up 133% of their production.
Richard Prideaux: Every time you see a bird landing on the roof, you go outside and clap at it until it keeps flying and then dies.
Richard Negus: Exactly. Is that a sparrow? Kill it. Yes.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Have you written your book backwards?
Richard Negus: Do you know what? I've finished the damn thing, which is a blessing and a bonus. I sent it off to the publisher at 08.58 this morning, just so that I was ahead of schedule before I left the house and goodbye. Now it's up to you to edit it.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Oh, Negus. Well done. I bet that was an absolute beast.
Richard Prideaux: I know you have put a lot of effort into this. I mean, what prompt did you use for ChatGPT to make it?
Richard Negus: Do you know the only one thing I did with ChatGPT? Well, I didn't. What I did do was I turned it into a PDF and I asked whatever it is, the Google one, I said, review this, be critical. And it was very, very polite, but it was very interesting. It took a long while, about sort of half an hour, and it came back out and it spat it out and gave me a very in-depth thing. But I realise I review a lot of books, largely for the critic, and I read them all from cover to cover, and I've got little red markers all over the blooming things, right? And I realise I'm a complete mug. As long as the thing's been published, if you go and ChatGPT thing and ask it to review the book for you and just copy and paste it, that's it, 300 quid, thank you very much. I'm the idiot who's actually reading all these things and then trying to jot down notes.
Richard Prideaux: My involvement with AI pretty much started and stopped with the realization after being told by my French friend that ChatGPT in French is Chat Jupiter, which is basically cat I have farted. Talking of unwanted emissions, I need to make a bit of a public apology.
Richard Negus: Yes.
Richard Prideaux: Because of something that happened with one of our listeners. This is somebody who they came to me for assistance with a recipe for foraged items. So it's very much in my wheelhouse. And they sent me some questions saying, this recipe in Richard Maybe's food for free for rosehip syrup is a bit unclear. Do you strain before this point or after that point? And I rang them and I said, well, no, this is very, very easy and simple to follow. You are an idiot, but you work in forestry. So, you know, reading comprehension. And then they went a bit further with it. And then I said, look, I know your father as well. So I'm going to put this phone down and ring your father and tell him that you should have been a ****. Poor old boy. To which point I discovered I was on speakerphone and his mother was the person he was doing the recipe with and was listening in the background. And I just heard a small plaintive voice saying, to be honest, I agree with you. I apologize there for, well, Just, I mean, going back in time 20 odd years and describing which direction he should have fired in.
Richard Negus: A full double down. It's harsh that, isn't it? We have celebrated my parents' 70th wedding anniversary. So they have now got.
Richard Prideaux: This could go in any direction now.
Richard Negus: No, they've got one of those cards from the Queen for their 60th wedding anniversary, and then I got one from the King and Queen Camilla for their 70th. Well, yes, a bit like, you know, you used to get telegrams when you're 100. Yay. Well, you also...
Callum McInerney-Riley: Why'd you get a card for being married?
Richard Negus: For 60 years. I think it's a sort of long service and good conduct medal.
Richard Prideaux: Not murdering, not doing a murder.
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly. So you've bucked the trend. You know, you've bucked every single trend as far as the divorce rates and you have stayed alive long. So you get something. What you have to do is that if you have, for listeners, if you have a parent or guardian who has been either is approaching their 100th birthday or has been married for 60 years, There is a little thing on the Buckingham Palace website which is significant, there's a tab which is like significant anniversaries and you ask them and you get a lovely card with lots of sort of braid and tassels on it saying well done that you've done this thing. But it is quite a fascinating thing when you think about it, that my parents have put up with one another for 70 years and we went and had family lunch on Sunday and.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I think, put up a lovely, lovely grace to describe it.
Richard Prideaux: As the bard would have.
Richard Negus: As the bard was used. They have lived in harmony together for 70 years. And one of my nephews said, well, what's the secret to your long lasting marriage? And I saw a sight glint in my father's eye, who is 96. And I went, and it was a bit like you mentioning to our listeners, and overheard that, the word **** and parents. And I thought, and I thought, how did all of us end up here around this table? It's because, of procreation. But there is this thing when you see these amazing old people who have still got all their vim and vigour, but you don't want to think about the vim and vigour of them when they were like, 19 and 25-6 when my father got married to my mother. I just don't want to think about that. It's something...
Richard Prideaux: I would just like to, for everyone listening, to pause for just a second there to imagine my parents having sex. Anyway, Callum, how are you?
Callum McInerney-Riley: What an intro that is.
Richard Prideaux: Just slipping it in there.
Callum McInerney-Riley: How do you follow it? I mean, the only thing I will say is the advice I've had is just because the rapper's crease don't mean the candy ain't sweet. It's been said before.
Richard Negus: I'll tell my mother that. I'll say, can we actually clip this out? And I'll just tell her, I say, you know Callum, he's the funny little guy from Essex. And she'll go, No, I've met him, haven't I? Because she always says, everyone I know, she said, have I met him? And I'll go, no, I don't think you have. He's the one I do the podcast, he does, you do the podcast with, don't, with him. No, podcast.
Callum McInerney-Riley: He's on the internet, isn't he?
Richard Negus: He's on the internet. Your father's got problems with the internet. And I go, oh yeah, I'll just click that, send it to me, and I'll play it out to him.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I have it as a ringtone.
Richard Negus: Whenever mum rings, can you come and sort the internet out? Dad's broken it again and I'll just get a little ring. Yes, do that.
Richard Prideaux: Hi, this is Richard from the Side Country Network and I am here to ask you for some help. Side Country is the non-profit organisation that produces this podcast and several others like it. We're an independent media organisation that is working to connect people with the British countryside and you can help us do that by signing up for our Patreon. If you have not supported a show on Patreon before, it's very simple. Click on the link in the show notes for this episode or go to sidecountry.co.uk/support and follow the steps there. You can sign up for different levels and they start at just 5 pounds a month. In return, you'll get early access to all of the Side Country shows some occasional bonus content and all of the other perks you get from helping us out. You will also get that warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that you have done something to help connect the public to the countryside in all of its forms. So go to sidecountry.co.uk/support or click on the link in the notes for this episode on your podcast player. And now back to the show.
Richard Negus: What are we going to talk about today? I can't remember now. Pudding. Who? Pudding.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Callum.
Richard Prideaux: Oh, Callum. Callum, yes, Callum was, we were part way through. How are you, Callum? What's your input into this?
Callum McInerney-Riley: What are we going to talk about?
Richard Prideaux: I don't know, skin complaints. We've covered that up. Communist revolutions in China. All that. *******. Dog fleas.
Richard Negus: Dog fleas. Yeah, we've done all the food groups really, haven't we?
Richard Prideaux: Callum, when do you, what's your first memory of the countryside?
Callum McInerney-Riley: It's going to be a boring one. The first one, I guess it's like one of those peak end theories. It's got to be a really good experience to remember it. So the earliest thing.
Richard Prideaux: Or traumatic.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Create a core memory.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I can't think of any early traumatic experiences in the countryside.
Richard Prideaux: They were all urban, really.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I do remember catching fish when I was about 6 years old. I remember that quite vividly. I remember where I was and stuff like that. So probably fishing. And I say countryside, it wasn't really that countryside.
Richard Prideaux: Was it a canal?
Callum McInerney-Riley: No, it was just a pond near my house catching a tiny little tench, which is quite a rare fish to be fair.
Richard Prideaux: So this is. the sort of thing, you spend a lot of time in the countryside now for work and for pleasure and you're out there with the kids and it seems to be that you make a concerted effort when you get back home from your pretty urban work a lot of the time to go out with the kids into a green space and go and do country stuff. So would you say that your perception and experience of the countryside and what it provides you has got better or worse throughout the course of your lifetime?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I think I get because I've met better people and developed. wider opportunities, my exposure to the countryside is better. I always think that the countryside is great if it's accessible. The things that are accessible are like National Trust parks and things like that, which is like a, it's the countryside, but it's like a day trippers countryside.
Richard Negus: The version the National Trust wants you to see. Yes.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yes, please. Enter the gift shop.
Richard Prideaux: You sort of grew up urban and on, visiting the countryside for other things, whereas Hedgelord there and I grew up very much in the countryside. So our experiences of it are all very different. But Richard, you're the oldest here. By a long way. A couple of years at least. I mean, your skin certainly is brand new.
Richard Negus: Yes, my skin is about that of Mum Ra the ever living.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. But. your experience in the countryside has been consistent. So one of the things we're sort of looking at, we're talking about what we're going to talk about tonight, we started talking about are things getting better or worse and the sort of the decline of rural services is a thing that you can bring up at any country dinner table, any country conversation anywhere and say, the post used to be better, used to be able to get buses, used to be able to get this or that or that. I think in some cases that's true. but not in every case.
Richard Negus: So that's a really good, really good question. I don't know if you have it here. We've got a thing called a Kelly's Directory, which would make fascinating reading, which basically gives you all of the rural businesses or the businesses that supplied, I suppose, like the early yellow pages for Suffolk. And They make very interesting reading because it not only puts just all the shops and services that were in it, but they show every single farmer who's in a village. So you'll see that there are quite frequently those same family names are in those, the 1889 Kelly's directory, and you'll still see some of the farming names are still farming there now. But it's the the other services in little tiny villages and you realise that my village here at one point had eight pubs and you think, how the hell did it ever service 8 pubs? There was a, quite literally the Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor of every single village that was a self-sufficient entity.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I stayed in a place near Otterburn and I was Absolutely shocked to realise that the nearest pub was a fair old way away. That wasn't, that's not the good one. So we have to travel even further. And there's like a co-op down the road and really you're looking at like, it was something insane, like 40 minutes to get to a supermarket. 40 minutes. I can, from my house, I can walk to an M&S garage and I could be eating like potted crab in the next 15 minutes if I really wanted to. Even against your will. There is so many options to me. I can walk to a supermarket in 20 minutes and that's walking. If I drive, the traffic's so bad it will also take me 20 minutes, but the point remains. It's things like shops and pubs and Post office. That seems to be the one that everyone, always see the countryside alliance banging on about.
Richard Negus: Oh yeah.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Closing post offices and basic services. And I also, there's a weird age thing mostly in rural places. There's lots of young people that rely on things like buses because they can't drive. They need buses to get to school. and there's people that work in the countryside and then there's quite a lot of elderly. So they're all people that rely heavily on public services. They need buses, they need community, they need all of these things. And it strikes me as most people, 20 odd, they want to go out into places, into cities and live in live in more urban places and it tends to be young families and retirees that live in the countryside. There's a kind of, there's an early years and a later years and they're heavy public service users. What have you found that's declined in the past, I don't know, 20 odd years?
Richard Prideaux: I think you notice some things, some things are declining across the board, but you notice it more out in the sticks because there's fewer other things or you're more reliant on it. So random one, postal services. So the sat on my desk here is it's been dealt with, wasn't really an issue, but a letter that came at the end of August was meant to come at the end of August, arrive middle of September.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Because there'd been a delay anywhere else other than our local postie was off for two weeks. So they just didn't cover her around. We just didn't, nobody in that postcode got post for two weeks. Mine arrived and it says company's house at the top of it and you think, oh **** I should have been reading, I should have had that. Yeah. But stuff like that. So there was, there's less resilience to cover things and resilience is probably the right word for this where it's It's not that someone's gone, oh, you're in the countryside, therefore you don't mean anything. It's just that the ability to cover a drop in capability or the drop in service is much reduced for places where everything's spread so far apart. Where there's all this distance between things. I mean, that's one of the things for bus services, which is always said, which I've seen a little bit of both sides of this, because I know a couple of people who used to be bus drivers. And bus services in rural areas died out partly because there weren't enough people requiring a bus to pay for it. So it would effectively have to become the equivalent of the NHS or something where it's a government funded service. So there are subsidised rural bus services, but at some point there's not enough money in the council budget to pay for the bus to drive past a bus stop where no one is.
Richard Negus: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's quite interesting. My local MP was demanding, he rose up in the House of Commons to go and talk about how badly served his constituency was. He failed to speak to any of the people who provide the bus services. Because the only reason they provide the bus services, because basically if they don't, they don't get the school run gig. And the school run gig is reliable A to B fares. So they know they can get it. But he said there is no way that the guy who runs this bus company, he said there's no way that I can actually ever make a living out of that unless I charge each passenger about 38 quid to go from Finningham to Stowmarket because it's just there's only four old girls on them. And it's interesting you said, Callum, is that the countryside is full of old people and young families. when I was researching the book, I went to Herefordshire on the way back from Mr Prideau's. I came back and looked at some rivers, the mono in Herefordshire. And they've got a fascinating demographic at the moment because basically the Cotswolds is full of London people. Now Herefordshire is next door and all the people who saw that the Cotswolds looks lovely, I think I want some of that. And they went there and went, how much am I have to pay for a house? I think I'm going to go and move somewhere else. And so they looked at Herefordshire and they thought that sounds absolutely fantastic. So Herefordshire has got this really weird demographic. Its population has increased by 65%. And of those increase of 65%, they are retirees from the South East who are still driving and bring with them plenty of wealth and also vast swathes of people who are working from home who come from the South East and have got South East wages, but they're transporting them to Herefordshire. So there's lots and lots of wealth. But they also are transporting with them because they suddenly go there and say, well, there's no public transport. So they bring with them a disproportionate amount of cars because they go, well, everyone's going to need a car in the household. And so it's quite weird that you suddenly put loads more cars in there and you then remove the bus transport service and there's no need for it. And also, of course, you completely stuff the rivers because they've all got power showers and they go and mess that. But that's a thing for another podcast. But I think it's something whereby we, there is need and use, but it's slightly horse before the cart. Here's an interesting thing. Sutton Hoo, you've heard of the Sutton Hoo findings, you know, Sutton's. Sutton Who?
Richard Prideaux: Don't they do Seeds?
Richard Negus: Yes, they do.
Richard Prideaux: Is that the same people? Actually, is that the same people?
Richard Negus: No, it's not. No, Sutton Seeds is a software company, but it's not actually that bit. Sutton Who is a place. It's actually, funnily enough, going back in time, it's very close to the unruly pig. Why does everything revolve around Dwal flunking? Well, exactly. Very close to the Unruly Peak. But it's where Basil Brown unearthed this in 1939, this amazing longship where Radwald Wolfen gas was buried and you'll see his helm in the British Museum. Fantastic thing. He made a film about it called The Dig that Ralph finds, puts on a Suffolk axe and pretends to be Basil Brown. Wholly recommend watching the film.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Basil Brown the Fox.
Richard Negus: No, you're thinking of the wrong one.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Did he boom boom or?
Richard Negus: No, that's the that's the ostrich thing, you know, used to you'd be you'd be these bite people. Anyway, Basil Brown, not the fox.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Boom boom.
Richard Negus: He. You used to live down the road in Wrecking Hall. All right, from me, it's about 3 villages down the road. I don't think the villages have a name.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I know, I think it doesn't sound all of this stuff sounds like you've made everything up.
Richard Negus: Basil Brown Sutton, who Wrecking Hall. Yes, Radwald Woofengas. It sounds like a sort of, you know, thing that I've just put my Radwald Woofengas on. Listen to this baby roar.
Callum McInerney-Riley: That sounds like one of those, you know, like Alpecin, that German efficiency. That sounds like an AI video that you would fall for. You get some German Woofengas cream for men over 40 that will help with that psoriasis.
Richard Negus: If I rubbed a bit of Radwald Woofengas on this bloody armour mine, It would be looking lovely, wouldn't it?
Callum McInerney-Riley: You wouldn't look like a reptile.
Richard Prideaux: Radwald Woofen.
Richard Negus: Radwald Woofengas.
Richard Prideaux: Radwald.
Richard Negus: That's Radwald. It's buried. Do you know what?
Richard Prideaux: Stop leak dog fart, as he said.
Richard Negus: Yes, quite. Actually, yes, his dog, Callum's dog, is called Woof and Gas Laugh.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yes, she is called Woof and Gas Laugh. All of the dogs are called Woof and Gas, aren't they?
Richard Negus: Yes, that's quite.
Richard Prideaux: What was the point of this conversation?
Richard Negus: Anyway, back to Basil Brown.
Callum McInerney-Riley: You know what we've just done? What? We have made a historic moment. This This podcast has got the highest density of the mentions Radwell Wolfengast of any podcast on the internet without. I don't even need to check it, back check it. So congratulations.
Richard Negus: Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts are going to be flocking to Countryside because they're going to go, oh, there's new news about Radwell Wolfengast and the Sutton Who find. Anyway, back to dear old Basil Brown. So he used to cycle from down the road at Ricking Hall and he would come to Finningham where I live and he'd leave.
Richard Prideaux: Say cycle again please.
Richard Negus: Cycle.
Richard Prideaux: No, say it like you said it.
Richard Negus: Cycle.
Richard Prideaux: Thank you.
Richard Negus: Yeah. He would cycle down the road and he would arrive in Finningham and there used to be a little train that ran from here to Woodbridge and he would get on the train from here to Woodbridge and then he would then go and get picked up. So it's the same size as a normal train.
Richard Prideaux: It's just.
Richard Negus: Yeah, but had very few carriages, I think.
Callum McInerney-Riley: So it wasn't, it wasn't like, he'd gone to see.
Richard Negus: I don't know.
Richard Prideaux: Hornby Model Railways. Sat astride it.
Richard Negus: A little man dressed in full, full gear, but he's a like a just sat on this little tiny thing going outside Tesco's. No, it's not like it's just small trains, branch line trains. Can we cut that?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Can we cut that bit just so we can get Negus beatboxing?
Richard Negus: That wasn't that's what trains sound like. What does it sound like? All the Anglo-Saxon, all the Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts are now just literally just turned off now. Your drop off rate on countryside has gone. I think that's, I think.
Callum McInerney-Riley: That's the least of our problems. Let's be honest.
Richard Negus: He'd then catch a bus to Sutton Who and then he'd start digging. Now, if.
Richard Prideaux: He'd start digging there because he knew there was a ship there that time.
Richard Negus: Yeah, because there's all these old things and the lady, Mrs. Pretty, who owned, that's her real name, who owned Sutton Who?
Richard Prideaux: Not Miss Pretty, as he kept saying in the film.
Richard Negus: No, that'd be Miss Pretty. See. Because I'll tell you why, because the bloke who taught him how to speak Suffolk actually come from Essex, funnily enough, originally. So I mean, he's about Suffolk as freaking not very Suffolk at all. The guy who taught him how to do it. Although, bizarrely, Ralph Fiennes comes from Norfolk, so you could have said he should just spoke more or less like you do. Anyway, he can't. get now from Wrecking Hall to Woodbridge for love and money. It would take you about 8 hours. So if Sutton Hoo was suddenly discovered now this is a hugely important place, what would the modern Basil Brown do? He'd be absolutely stymied.
Richard Prideaux: He'd be dead, first of all, because he's... When did he die? Quite a long time ago.
Richard Negus: About 1950 something, I think. So that is.
Richard Prideaux: So we found now you wouldn't. Basil Brown couldn't do it.
Richard Negus: Yes, admittedly, but because he's dead, his digging would be rubbish.
Callum McInerney-Riley: How old would he be when he at peak digging age?
Richard Negus: When he was doing that, I think he was in his sort of late 50s. He was about my age. Because you know, back then, people in the late 50s looked 80.
Callum McInerney-Riley: But if he was now...
Richard Prideaux: What I'm looking at on the screen here tells me something else.
Richard Negus: Don't go get on about my psoriasis. My propolis will kick in soon.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I reckon.
Richard Prideaux: Is that the one you get over the blue tablet?
Callum McInerney-Riley: If it was modern times, I reckon he would probably have just, he would have probably had a Strava app and he would have been fully in lycra. He would have had one of those pairs of shorts that make you look like a baboon and he probably would have just cycled there and he would have been insufferable on Strava doing his just back for digging again, done it in three hours. Yes. Because that's what 50 year old men do now. I see him in the. in the caf every Sunday morning are talking about their Audi A6 estates and what they're going to do with their pension plan. That's what 58 year old men do.
Richard Negus: You're utterly right. You see, if actually the dig had to be made today, it'd be some insufferable boar in a pair of lycra shorts clacking about. He probably wouldn't even have bothered going and digging and finding.
Callum McInerney-Riley: TikTok channel. I've got an aftershow story about digging and metal detecting.
Richard Negus: Wow, there we go. So basically we've said what has gone wrong in the countryside is custodians like Basil Brown have been replaced by baboons in Lycra. There you go. Put that on the front page of the Daily Mail.
Richard Prideaux: Daily Mail.
Richard Negus: It is when it pays my bills. Come on, I need to write another angry article.
Richard Prideaux: So thank you very much. Just a bit of housekeeping at the very end before we go to the after show. On Thursday, 24th of July, July, July, no 24th of September, A couple of us, particularly Amy and myself, will be at the APF show, the big forestry show at Ragley, wandering around. And because Richard Negus isn't there, I'm allowed to take the hand-painted sign that he refused to have anything to do with. So if you see the sign that says Country Slide, we're sorry, then you know you found the right people.
Richard Negus: Yeah, there's kick the individual, but not in his bad leg.
Richard Prideaux: No, I'll be wearing shorts just so I can get maximum sympathy as well.
Richard Prideaux: I think we've got a national emergency to discuss and that is the sudden arrival of every single seed head in the fur of every single dog around the United Kingdom. Because it just seems to be in the last week all the cleaver seeds, all the thistle seeds have just suddenly exploded and now in my dog's fur.
Richard Negus: I have to say my dogs have got fleas. and fleas are like everywhere. It's an absolute pain. They are relatively cleaver free, but they're like riddled with fleas. And thanks to the countryside WhatsApp group, I now know why. We can blame it on global warming because basically this hot summer has done stupid things to a fleas life cycle and they're now living in my lawn, well I say lawn, that sort of burnt parched stubble that passes for a lawn which is still out there. And apparently they're just living there waiting for a cocker spaniel to arrive and go, oh, just jump back on. Poor Claire has been there. Yeah, they're nothing. Has your dog got fleas, Calum?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Not that I know of. I should probably check, can I?
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum McInerney-Riley: But I did hear that because the the weather that we've had and the drought, the things like ticks, they just go from an area that is, they'll just find an area that's wet and live in an area that's wet. So it's not that there's going to be less of them necessarily, but they'll all be congregated into a single area because the environment has been inhospitable for them because it's been so warm.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, we've probably had a reduction in fungal infections over this summer and a rise in insects and ticks.
Richard Negus: Yes, that's, I mean, look, there's a, isn't that the ying and the yang of nature? Yes, exactly. My fungal infections have diminished and now, you know, the dogs are covered in fleas. It's, there you go, it's the circle of life as a lion once sang.
Richard Prideaux: There's something somewhere in the cocktail of drugs I was ingesting in the sort of the transition from winter to spring with my adventures. Something in there cleared up every nail fungal infection I've ever had.
Richard Negus: Really.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, I don't know which bit it was. It's like George's marvellous medicine. There's something in there they gave me that cleared everything up, but no one's quite sure why.
Richard Negus: Isn't that bizarre? I mean, I mean, I have to say, because courtesy of writing a book in this hottest summer on record, is that I should usually be like brown. And this bloody psoriasis that I have got has been absolutely bloody terrible, I have to say, this year. And it goes usually with vitamin D from the sun. And because I've been sat in, as you call it, the orangery, writing, I haven't had it and I've tried everything. And so I ordered some propolis from, well, it shows what a mug I am.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Is it from a coy aquarium place? Because that's what they usually use to treat aquatic animals.
Richard Negus: Shall I tell you, Callum, I am probably what's that? What's that thing you always you buy from Ali Alibaba?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, Ali AliExpress.
Richard Negus: Yeah, well, basically, I hadn't realized I saw, and I don't know how, because I don't sort of write about, oh, you'll see, I've got terrible psoriasis on my arms. I don't write that anywhere. So I reckon it's looking through the camera on my computer, right? And somehow or other, I suddenly got bombarded with all these things that looked like basically Richard Prido and producer Amy in a kitchen, right? Going, oh, it's so lovely to work together. I'm taking all these natural things together and I'm mixing them and I turn this thing and I don't know how it happens, but that clears up psoriasis no end. And of course, me, like a complete mug, went, oh, I'll buy that. And I ordered it and it arrived. And if a country kitchen is in China, that's where it's made. Because when I actually thought where it's made, it wasn't made by these people who I met on Instagram who looked very plausible. I ordered this. I don't know even if it's properly at all.
Callum McInerney-Riley: You got to the age where you have been fooled by an AI generated video. Is that what you're telling us?
Richard Negus: They look so normal. and they sounded slightly bad at being on being recorded. And so I'm sure that must be AI because they had no self-awareness. They were a bit crap. So someone said, make it sound like it's basically some Dorset farmer's wife who's stirring things in a kitchen and I bought it and I'm slathering this stuff on me. I'll be perfectly honest. Has it done anything? No. Well, it might have done, it might have sort of stripped the skin off because I should imagine the propolis is actually probably propane byproducts.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Well, does it look like you've just finished a Greg sausage roll on your desk after you've finished your writing session? Because that's a good tale.
Richard Negus: It's horrible.
Richard Prideaux: So this being fooled by AI thing, it's not necessarily new. But I think it does sort of creep over you slowly. So a friend of ours on a friend of the show, his mother disappears off on very exclusive tours of parts of the Himalayas and teaching people about art and all sorts of things there. He's a very fascinating, fascinating person. One of my favorite people on earth. But she was saying that she came home from one of her trips in the recent years where her husband was saying, yes, and so and so and so and so if this happened to so and so and so and so, there was the murder of course. And then there was this and then they're not going to get through this environmental health inspection. And anyway, this person said that and she was about 15 minutes into listening to this before she discovered he was talking about the archers. And he just delivered it as if it was village news. So I think we're only three steps from there for you, Richard.
Richard Negus: Yeah, well, that's basically it. Yes, I'm starting to think that some of the things I watch on Acorn TV are actually fly on the wall documentaries. Oh my God, I do hope the vet gets there in time for the breach birth calf. Yeah. Amazing, he drives a, he seems to be driving an Austin 7. But anyway, yeah, I know. But anyway, so my arms and forehead have been covered in Chinese knock-off propolis. I mean, maybe.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I feel like you're more susceptible to the ideas of the CCP.
Richard Negus: Well, I have found whenever I wake up in the morning, I'm always searching for a small red book. And I have a quick chant before I go out to work and I feel better about myself. turnips, they're up 133% of their production.
Richard Prideaux: Every time you see a bird landing on the roof, you go outside and clap at it until it keeps flying and then dies.
Richard Negus: Exactly. Is that a sparrow? Kill it. Yes.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Have you written your book backwards?
Richard Negus: Do you know what? I've finished the damn thing, which is a blessing and a bonus. I sent it off to the publisher at 08.58 this morning, just so that I was ahead of schedule before I left the house and goodbye. Now it's up to you to edit it.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Oh, Negus. Well done. I bet that was an absolute beast.
Richard Prideaux: I know you have put a lot of effort into this. I mean, what prompt did you use for ChatGPT to make it?
Richard Negus: Do you know the only one thing I did with ChatGPT? Well, I didn't. What I did do was I turned it into a PDF and I asked whatever it is, the Google one, I said, review this, be critical. And it was very, very polite, but it was very interesting. It took a long while, about sort of half an hour, and it came back out and it spat it out and gave me a very in-depth thing. But I realise I review a lot of books, largely for the critic, and I read them all from cover to cover, and I've got little red markers all over the blooming things, right? And I realise I'm a complete mug. As long as the thing's been published, if you go and ChatGPT thing and ask it to review the book for you and just copy and paste it, that's it, 300 quid, thank you very much. I'm the idiot who's actually reading all these things and then trying to jot down notes.
Richard Prideaux: My involvement with AI pretty much started and stopped with the realization after being told by my French friend that ChatGPT in French is Chat Jupiter, which is basically cat I have farted. Talking of unwanted emissions, I need to make a bit of a public apology.
Richard Negus: Yes.
Richard Prideaux: Because of something that happened with one of our listeners. This is somebody who they came to me for assistance with a recipe for foraged items. So it's very much in my wheelhouse. And they sent me some questions saying, this recipe in Richard Maybe's food for free for rosehip syrup is a bit unclear. Do you strain before this point or after that point? And I rang them and I said, well, no, this is very, very easy and simple to follow. You are an idiot, but you work in forestry. So, you know, reading comprehension. And then they went a bit further with it. And then I said, look, I know your father as well. So I'm going to put this phone down and ring your father and tell him that you should have been a ****. Poor old boy. To which point I discovered I was on speakerphone and his mother was the person he was doing the recipe with and was listening in the background. And I just heard a small plaintive voice saying, to be honest, I agree with you. I apologize there for, well, Just, I mean, going back in time 20 odd years and describing which direction he should have fired in.
Richard Negus: A full double down. It's harsh that, isn't it? We have celebrated my parents' 70th wedding anniversary. So they have now got.
Richard Prideaux: This could go in any direction now.
Richard Negus: No, they've got one of those cards from the Queen for their 60th wedding anniversary, and then I got one from the King and Queen Camilla for their 70th. Well, yes, a bit like, you know, you used to get telegrams when you're 100. Yay. Well, you also...
Callum McInerney-Riley: Why'd you get a card for being married?
Richard Negus: For 60 years. I think it's a sort of long service and good conduct medal.
Richard Prideaux: Not murdering, not doing a murder.
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly. So you've bucked the trend. You know, you've bucked every single trend as far as the divorce rates and you have stayed alive long. So you get something. What you have to do is that if you have, for listeners, if you have a parent or guardian who has been either is approaching their 100th birthday or has been married for 60 years, There is a little thing on the Buckingham Palace website which is significant, there's a tab which is like significant anniversaries and you ask them and you get a lovely card with lots of sort of braid and tassels on it saying well done that you've done this thing. But it is quite a fascinating thing when you think about it, that my parents have put up with one another for 70 years and we went and had family lunch on Sunday and.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I think, put up a lovely, lovely grace to describe it.
Richard Prideaux: As the bard would have.
Richard Negus: As the bard was used. They have lived in harmony together for 70 years. And one of my nephews said, well, what's the secret to your long lasting marriage? And I saw a sight glint in my father's eye, who is 96. And I went, and it was a bit like you mentioning to our listeners, and overheard that, the word **** and parents. And I thought, and I thought, how did all of us end up here around this table? It's because, of procreation. But there is this thing when you see these amazing old people who have still got all their vim and vigour, but you don't want to think about the vim and vigour of them when they were like, 19 and 25-6 when my father got married to my mother. I just don't want to think about that. It's something...
Richard Prideaux: I would just like to, for everyone listening, to pause for just a second there to imagine my parents having sex. Anyway, Callum, how are you?
Callum McInerney-Riley: What an intro that is.
Richard Prideaux: Just slipping it in there.
Callum McInerney-Riley: How do you follow it? I mean, the only thing I will say is the advice I've had is just because the rapper's crease don't mean the candy ain't sweet. It's been said before.
Richard Negus: I'll tell my mother that. I'll say, can we actually clip this out? And I'll just tell her, I say, you know Callum, he's the funny little guy from Essex. And she'll go, No, I've met him, haven't I? Because she always says, everyone I know, she said, have I met him? And I'll go, no, I don't think you have. He's the one I do the podcast, he does, you do the podcast with, don't, with him. No, podcast.
Callum McInerney-Riley: He's on the internet, isn't he?
Richard Negus: He's on the internet. Your father's got problems with the internet. And I go, oh yeah, I'll just click that, send it to me, and I'll play it out to him.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I have it as a ringtone.
Richard Negus: Whenever mum rings, can you come and sort the internet out? Dad's broken it again and I'll just get a little ring. Yes, do that.
Richard Prideaux: Hi, this is Richard from the Side Country Network and I am here to ask you for some help. Side Country is the non-profit organisation that produces this podcast and several others like it. We're an independent media organisation that is working to connect people with the British countryside and you can help us do that by signing up for our Patreon. If you have not supported a show on Patreon before, it's very simple. Click on the link in the show notes for this episode or go to sidecountry.co.uk/support and follow the steps there. You can sign up for different levels and they start at just 5 pounds a month. In return, you'll get early access to all of the Side Country shows some occasional bonus content and all of the other perks you get from helping us out. You will also get that warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that you have done something to help connect the public to the countryside in all of its forms. So go to sidecountry.co.uk/support or click on the link in the notes for this episode on your podcast player. And now back to the show.
Richard Negus: What are we going to talk about today? I can't remember now. Pudding. Who? Pudding.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Callum.
Richard Prideaux: Oh, Callum. Callum, yes, Callum was, we were part way through. How are you, Callum? What's your input into this?
Callum McInerney-Riley: What are we going to talk about?
Richard Prideaux: I don't know, skin complaints. We've covered that up. Communist revolutions in China. All that. *******. Dog fleas.
Richard Negus: Dog fleas. Yeah, we've done all the food groups really, haven't we?
Richard Prideaux: Callum, when do you, what's your first memory of the countryside?
Callum McInerney-Riley: It's going to be a boring one. The first one, I guess it's like one of those peak end theories. It's got to be a really good experience to remember it. So the earliest thing.
Richard Prideaux: Or traumatic.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Create a core memory.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I can't think of any early traumatic experiences in the countryside.
Richard Prideaux: They were all urban, really.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I do remember catching fish when I was about 6 years old. I remember that quite vividly. I remember where I was and stuff like that. So probably fishing. And I say countryside, it wasn't really that countryside.
Richard Prideaux: Was it a canal?
Callum McInerney-Riley: No, it was just a pond near my house catching a tiny little tench, which is quite a rare fish to be fair.
Richard Prideaux: So this is. the sort of thing, you spend a lot of time in the countryside now for work and for pleasure and you're out there with the kids and it seems to be that you make a concerted effort when you get back home from your pretty urban work a lot of the time to go out with the kids into a green space and go and do country stuff. So would you say that your perception and experience of the countryside and what it provides you has got better or worse throughout the course of your lifetime?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I think I get because I've met better people and developed. wider opportunities, my exposure to the countryside is better. I always think that the countryside is great if it's accessible. The things that are accessible are like National Trust parks and things like that, which is like a, it's the countryside, but it's like a day trippers countryside.
Richard Negus: The version the National Trust wants you to see. Yes.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yes, please. Enter the gift shop.
Richard Prideaux: You sort of grew up urban and on, visiting the countryside for other things, whereas Hedgelord there and I grew up very much in the countryside. So our experiences of it are all very different. But Richard, you're the oldest here. By a long way. A couple of years at least. I mean, your skin certainly is brand new.
Richard Negus: Yes, my skin is about that of Mum Ra the ever living.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. But. your experience in the countryside has been consistent. So one of the things we're sort of looking at, we're talking about what we're going to talk about tonight, we started talking about are things getting better or worse and the sort of the decline of rural services is a thing that you can bring up at any country dinner table, any country conversation anywhere and say, the post used to be better, used to be able to get buses, used to be able to get this or that or that. I think in some cases that's true. but not in every case.
Richard Negus: So that's a really good, really good question. I don't know if you have it here. We've got a thing called a Kelly's Directory, which would make fascinating reading, which basically gives you all of the rural businesses or the businesses that supplied, I suppose, like the early yellow pages for Suffolk. And They make very interesting reading because it not only puts just all the shops and services that were in it, but they show every single farmer who's in a village. So you'll see that there are quite frequently those same family names are in those, the 1889 Kelly's directory, and you'll still see some of the farming names are still farming there now. But it's the the other services in little tiny villages and you realise that my village here at one point had eight pubs and you think, how the hell did it ever service 8 pubs? There was a, quite literally the Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor of every single village that was a self-sufficient entity.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I stayed in a place near Otterburn and I was Absolutely shocked to realise that the nearest pub was a fair old way away. That wasn't, that's not the good one. So we have to travel even further. And there's like a co-op down the road and really you're looking at like, it was something insane, like 40 minutes to get to a supermarket. 40 minutes. I can, from my house, I can walk to an M&S garage and I could be eating like potted crab in the next 15 minutes if I really wanted to. Even against your will. There is so many options to me. I can walk to a supermarket in 20 minutes and that's walking. If I drive, the traffic's so bad it will also take me 20 minutes, but the point remains. It's things like shops and pubs and Post office. That seems to be the one that everyone, always see the countryside alliance banging on about.
Richard Negus: Oh yeah.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Closing post offices and basic services. And I also, there's a weird age thing mostly in rural places. There's lots of young people that rely on things like buses because they can't drive. They need buses to get to school. and there's people that work in the countryside and then there's quite a lot of elderly. So they're all people that rely heavily on public services. They need buses, they need community, they need all of these things. And it strikes me as most people, 20 odd, they want to go out into places, into cities and live in live in more urban places and it tends to be young families and retirees that live in the countryside. There's a kind of, there's an early years and a later years and they're heavy public service users. What have you found that's declined in the past, I don't know, 20 odd years?
Richard Prideaux: I think you notice some things, some things are declining across the board, but you notice it more out in the sticks because there's fewer other things or you're more reliant on it. So random one, postal services. So the sat on my desk here is it's been dealt with, wasn't really an issue, but a letter that came at the end of August was meant to come at the end of August, arrive middle of September.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Because there'd been a delay anywhere else other than our local postie was off for two weeks. So they just didn't cover her around. We just didn't, nobody in that postcode got post for two weeks. Mine arrived and it says company's house at the top of it and you think, oh **** I should have been reading, I should have had that. Yeah. But stuff like that. So there was, there's less resilience to cover things and resilience is probably the right word for this where it's It's not that someone's gone, oh, you're in the countryside, therefore you don't mean anything. It's just that the ability to cover a drop in capability or the drop in service is much reduced for places where everything's spread so far apart. Where there's all this distance between things. I mean, that's one of the things for bus services, which is always said, which I've seen a little bit of both sides of this, because I know a couple of people who used to be bus drivers. And bus services in rural areas died out partly because there weren't enough people requiring a bus to pay for it. So it would effectively have to become the equivalent of the NHS or something where it's a government funded service. So there are subsidised rural bus services, but at some point there's not enough money in the council budget to pay for the bus to drive past a bus stop where no one is.
Richard Negus: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's quite interesting. My local MP was demanding, he rose up in the House of Commons to go and talk about how badly served his constituency was. He failed to speak to any of the people who provide the bus services. Because the only reason they provide the bus services, because basically if they don't, they don't get the school run gig. And the school run gig is reliable A to B fares. So they know they can get it. But he said there is no way that the guy who runs this bus company, he said there's no way that I can actually ever make a living out of that unless I charge each passenger about 38 quid to go from Finningham to Stowmarket because it's just there's only four old girls on them. And it's interesting you said, Callum, is that the countryside is full of old people and young families. when I was researching the book, I went to Herefordshire on the way back from Mr Prideau's. I came back and looked at some rivers, the mono in Herefordshire. And they've got a fascinating demographic at the moment because basically the Cotswolds is full of London people. Now Herefordshire is next door and all the people who saw that the Cotswolds looks lovely, I think I want some of that. And they went there and went, how much am I have to pay for a house? I think I'm going to go and move somewhere else. And so they looked at Herefordshire and they thought that sounds absolutely fantastic. So Herefordshire has got this really weird demographic. Its population has increased by 65%. And of those increase of 65%, they are retirees from the South East who are still driving and bring with them plenty of wealth and also vast swathes of people who are working from home who come from the South East and have got South East wages, but they're transporting them to Herefordshire. So there's lots and lots of wealth. But they also are transporting with them because they suddenly go there and say, well, there's no public transport. So they bring with them a disproportionate amount of cars because they go, well, everyone's going to need a car in the household. And so it's quite weird that you suddenly put loads more cars in there and you then remove the bus transport service and there's no need for it. And also, of course, you completely stuff the rivers because they've all got power showers and they go and mess that. But that's a thing for another podcast. But I think it's something whereby we, there is need and use, but it's slightly horse before the cart. Here's an interesting thing. Sutton Hoo, you've heard of the Sutton Hoo findings, you know, Sutton's. Sutton Who?
Richard Prideaux: Don't they do Seeds?
Richard Negus: Yes, they do.
Richard Prideaux: Is that the same people? Actually, is that the same people?
Richard Negus: No, it's not. No, Sutton Seeds is a software company, but it's not actually that bit. Sutton Who is a place. It's actually, funnily enough, going back in time, it's very close to the unruly pig. Why does everything revolve around Dwal flunking? Well, exactly. Very close to the Unruly Peak. But it's where Basil Brown unearthed this in 1939, this amazing longship where Radwald Wolfen gas was buried and you'll see his helm in the British Museum. Fantastic thing. He made a film about it called The Dig that Ralph finds, puts on a Suffolk axe and pretends to be Basil Brown. Wholly recommend watching the film.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Basil Brown the Fox.
Richard Negus: No, you're thinking of the wrong one.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Did he boom boom or?
Richard Negus: No, that's the that's the ostrich thing, you know, used to you'd be you'd be these bite people. Anyway, Basil Brown, not the fox.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Boom boom.
Richard Negus: He. You used to live down the road in Wrecking Hall. All right, from me, it's about 3 villages down the road. I don't think the villages have a name.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I know, I think it doesn't sound all of this stuff sounds like you've made everything up.
Richard Negus: Basil Brown Sutton, who Wrecking Hall. Yes, Radwald Woofengas. It sounds like a sort of, you know, thing that I've just put my Radwald Woofengas on. Listen to this baby roar.
Callum McInerney-Riley: That sounds like one of those, you know, like Alpecin, that German efficiency. That sounds like an AI video that you would fall for. You get some German Woofengas cream for men over 40 that will help with that psoriasis.
Richard Negus: If I rubbed a bit of Radwald Woofengas on this bloody armour mine, It would be looking lovely, wouldn't it?
Callum McInerney-Riley: You wouldn't look like a reptile.
Richard Prideaux: Radwald Woofen.
Richard Negus: Radwald Woofengas.
Richard Prideaux: Radwald.
Richard Negus: That's Radwald. It's buried. Do you know what?
Richard Prideaux: Stop leak dog fart, as he said.
Richard Negus: Yes, quite. Actually, yes, his dog, Callum's dog, is called Woof and Gas Laugh.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yes, she is called Woof and Gas Laugh. All of the dogs are called Woof and Gas, aren't they?
Richard Negus: Yes, that's quite.
Richard Prideaux: What was the point of this conversation?
Richard Negus: Anyway, back to Basil Brown.
Callum McInerney-Riley: You know what we've just done? What? We have made a historic moment. This This podcast has got the highest density of the mentions Radwell Wolfengast of any podcast on the internet without. I don't even need to check it, back check it. So congratulations.
Richard Negus: Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts are going to be flocking to Countryside because they're going to go, oh, there's new news about Radwell Wolfengast and the Sutton Who find. Anyway, back to dear old Basil Brown. So he used to cycle from down the road at Ricking Hall and he would come to Finningham where I live and he'd leave.
Richard Prideaux: Say cycle again please.
Richard Negus: Cycle.
Richard Prideaux: No, say it like you said it.
Richard Negus: Cycle.
Richard Prideaux: Thank you.
Richard Negus: Yeah. He would cycle down the road and he would arrive in Finningham and there used to be a little train that ran from here to Woodbridge and he would get on the train from here to Woodbridge and then he would then go and get picked up. So it's the same size as a normal train.
Richard Prideaux: It's just.
Richard Negus: Yeah, but had very few carriages, I think.
Callum McInerney-Riley: So it wasn't, it wasn't like, he'd gone to see.
Richard Negus: I don't know.
Richard Prideaux: Hornby Model Railways. Sat astride it.
Richard Negus: A little man dressed in full, full gear, but he's a like a just sat on this little tiny thing going outside Tesco's. No, it's not like it's just small trains, branch line trains. Can we cut that?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Can we cut that bit just so we can get Negus beatboxing?
Richard Negus: That wasn't that's what trains sound like. What does it sound like? All the Anglo-Saxon, all the Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts are now just literally just turned off now. Your drop off rate on countryside has gone. I think that's, I think.
Callum McInerney-Riley: That's the least of our problems. Let's be honest.
Richard Negus: He'd then catch a bus to Sutton Who and then he'd start digging. Now, if.
Richard Prideaux: He'd start digging there because he knew there was a ship there that time.
Richard Negus: Yeah, because there's all these old things and the lady, Mrs. Pretty, who owned, that's her real name, who owned Sutton Who?
Richard Prideaux: Not Miss Pretty, as he kept saying in the film.
Richard Negus: No, that'd be Miss Pretty. See. Because I'll tell you why, because the bloke who taught him how to speak Suffolk actually come from Essex, funnily enough, originally. So I mean, he's about Suffolk as freaking not very Suffolk at all. The guy who taught him how to do it. Although, bizarrely, Ralph Fiennes comes from Norfolk, so you could have said he should just spoke more or less like you do. Anyway, he can't. get now from Wrecking Hall to Woodbridge for love and money. It would take you about 8 hours. So if Sutton Hoo was suddenly discovered now this is a hugely important place, what would the modern Basil Brown do? He'd be absolutely stymied.
Richard Prideaux: He'd be dead, first of all, because he's... When did he die? Quite a long time ago.
Richard Negus: About 1950 something, I think. So that is.
Richard Prideaux: So we found now you wouldn't. Basil Brown couldn't do it.
Richard Negus: Yes, admittedly, but because he's dead, his digging would be rubbish.
Callum McInerney-Riley: How old would he be when he at peak digging age?
Richard Negus: When he was doing that, I think he was in his sort of late 50s. He was about my age. Because you know, back then, people in the late 50s looked 80.
Callum McInerney-Riley: But if he was now...
Richard Prideaux: What I'm looking at on the screen here tells me something else.
Richard Negus: Don't go get on about my psoriasis. My propolis will kick in soon.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I reckon.
Richard Prideaux: Is that the one you get over the blue tablet?
Callum McInerney-Riley: If it was modern times, I reckon he would probably have just, he would have probably had a Strava app and he would have been fully in lycra. He would have had one of those pairs of shorts that make you look like a baboon and he probably would have just cycled there and he would have been insufferable on Strava doing his just back for digging again, done it in three hours. Yes. Because that's what 50 year old men do now. I see him in the. in the caf every Sunday morning are talking about their Audi A6 estates and what they're going to do with their pension plan. That's what 58 year old men do.
Richard Negus: You're utterly right. You see, if actually the dig had to be made today, it'd be some insufferable boar in a pair of lycra shorts clacking about. He probably wouldn't even have bothered going and digging and finding.
Callum McInerney-Riley: TikTok channel. I've got an aftershow story about digging and metal detecting.
Richard Negus: Wow, there we go. So basically we've said what has gone wrong in the countryside is custodians like Basil Brown have been replaced by baboons in Lycra. There you go. Put that on the front page of the Daily Mail.
Richard Prideaux: Daily Mail.
Richard Negus: It is when it pays my bills. Come on, I need to write another angry article.
Richard Prideaux: So thank you very much. Just a bit of housekeeping at the very end before we go to the after show. On Thursday, 24th of July, July, July, no 24th of September, A couple of us, particularly Amy and myself, will be at the APF show, the big forestry show at Ragley, wandering around. And because Richard Negus isn't there, I'm allowed to take the hand-painted sign that he refused to have anything to do with. So if you see the sign that says Country Slide, we're sorry, then you know you found the right people.
Richard Negus: Yeah, there's kick the individual, but not in his bad leg.
Richard Prideaux: No, I'll be wearing shorts just so I can get maximum sympathy as well.