COMMUNITY Dances with DAFFODILS Deep in the countryside, a rural neighbourhood works together to protect and celebrate a remarkable seasonal spectacle words by kitty corrigan photographs by andrew montgomery Wild daffodils carpet the ground in the village of , where Maggie Brocklehurst (below) drives a minibus for visitors

he village of Kempley in Gloucestershire has a special reason to welcome the festival of Lent. In the days preceding Easter, a floral tapestry of sunshine yellow spreads across the fields, through the forest and along the hedgerows and byways. It reaches as far as its two neighbours, Dymock and , which, together with Kempley, make up an area known as the Golden Triangle. This is the annual display of the elegant Lent Lily or wild daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus), whose delicate beauty makes its cultivated cousin look bold and brash by contrast. Although the first sighting can vary by a week or more depending on the weather, it never fails to appear early each spring, making the most of the light filtering through bare branches before leaves dress the trees. Many of Kempley’s 280 residents remember the 1950s, when the flowers were harvested and taken by rail on ‘The Daffodil Line’ to markets in Birmingham and London. Schoolchildren would sell posies for just under a shilling, while their parents were employed in selecting and boxing up the blooms. London ladies would travel on a ‘daffodil special’ ticket to pick bunches that they would sell in East End hospitals, bringing a little bit of the countryside to the city. There are tales of the road from Kempley being coloured yellow with dropped daffodils on the way to the station at Dymock, which then bustled with trade. The railway closed in 1964, and, in order to conserve diminishing numbers, picking the flowers has long since been banned. But old photographs in the Dymock community-owned pub, The Beauchamp Arms, are proof that they once extended further afield. Sadly, modern farming practices have taken their toll, leaving ‘ghost fields’ where wild daffodils once stretched to the horizon. It’s a fact that makes the remaining acres all the more

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Martin Brocklehurst (left) leads walks along the Daffodil Way, where drifts of the springtime blooms can be seen

precious to ramblers, horse-riders, birdwatchers, dog-walkers and the local community who are determined to conserve and celebrate them. Ever since 1975, when three women came up with the idea of raising funds for the parish church by organising walks and serving refreshments, the three villages have held daffodil weekends, spacing them out through the season so that each can benefit. Margaret Brooke was one of the original trio and still volunteers: “There was no internet then, so we made posters and wrote letters to publicise the event, and baked buns by the dozen. Now there are 65 of us helping with the lunches and teas in Kempley alone. Others make or sell crafts, homemade cakes, preserves and plants.” Their efforts paid off and now, during Kempley’s daffodil weekend alone, more than 400 visitors per day arrive from near and far to wander though the golden blooms. Sponsorship from the nearby Three Choirs Vineyard pays for the hire of a minibus, so people of all abilities can see the main sites. This is driven by Maggie Brocklehurst, who also serves as a daffodil guardian, collecting seed that will generate new bulbs in three years and be planted nearby – but not too near the garden variety, which has been interbreeding with wild abandon. (A suggestion to ban the usurpers was considered draconian.) Maggie’s husband, Martin, helps to co-ordinate the event, and leads guided walks along the Daffodil Way, a footpath opened in 1988 that takes in eight miles of forest, meadow, 15th-century barns and farmhouses, perry orchards and cider mills. Along the way he explains that this native woodland species has been present since the Ice Age, that it thrives in unimproved grassland (where no fertiliser has been used) and is a boon to wildlife, being the first source of nectar for the bumblebee that plays such a

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The funds raised help to maintain St Edward’s Church and the village hall. Daffodil petals are even made into natural confetti (below right)

crucial role in pollinating crops. Local farmers are compensated as far as we know, aspired to improve on Wordsworth’s famous for protecting the fields until the flowers die back, when sheep poem: ‘I gazed – and gazed – but little thought/What wealth the are allowed in to graze for a restricted period. “Most landowners show to me had brought’.) are supportive,” Martin says, “and a highlight of our tour is being Last year was one of the most successful events so far, both in able to walk through drifts of daffodils in the Long Meadow at terms of the display and the money raised – £6,000 by Kempley Friars Court Farm, owned by William and Kate Blandford. People alone (and a total of £13,000 from all three villages). It’s enough to who have retired out of the village come back for this weekend, maintain the village hall and St Edward’s Church across the road, and we have fourth-generation visitors who want to see for described by John Betjeman as “a mini cathedral of the Arts and themselves the springtime phenomenon they have heard about.” Crafts movement”. Local resident Ann Young, who was christened St Mary’s Church is another draw. The medieval building and married there, recalls, “As a child I remember standing at the contains frescoes that are remarkably clear, having been fully farm gate selling daffodils, and the family car was often piled to revealed only in 1956, and are some of the best preserved in the roof with them.” She farmed until retirement five years ago, Europe. They were whitewashed over during the Reformation and is now one of the Kempley ‘Baking Ladies’. to cover what were then regarded as idolatrous images. While the Ann’s story, stretching from birth to retirement and beyond, church is no longer in regular use, owing to flooding problems, is the perfect example of this resilient rural community. In it is maintained by the Friends of Kempley Churches on behalf a time when the new and novel often wins out, they instead chose of English Heritage, and is open during daffodil weekends. to turn to a beautiful part of their past, celebrating it, sharing it The Daffodil Way isn’t the only local walk that takes in this with the public and, in doing so, ensuring the daffodils and the natural spectacle. The Poets’ Path is an easy, figure-of-eight route, villages they surround last long into the future. passing by the glorious Ketford daffodil bank, which would have been enjoyed by writers Rupert Brooke, and Robert Daffodil weekends this year will be held on 17, 18 March Frost, all of whom lived in the area around the time of the First (Kempley); 24, 25 March (Oxenhall); and 31 March, 1 April

World War, and are commemorated in Dymock. (None of them, (Dymock). For more details, visit kempleytardis.org.uk. RUTHROWLAND.CO.UK BY HAND-LETTERING

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