Being here

Early November 2021? Will it be much the same as early November 2020 when the Coronavirus pandemic persisted in being as unfamiliar to its millions of victims as myxomatosis was to rabbits when it first began to kill them, or as the citrus scale insects were to the lemon and orange trees of Corfu – now blighted, and even killed, from one end of the island to the other. We’ve sprayed our two lemons and orange with doses of olive oil soap dissolved in water mixed with cider vinergar – a cup to 10 litres of grey soapy water. 

When we arrived 9 weeks ago, we found to our delight, at least one of our trees laden with lemons, now, in November, turning yellow. The orange is blackened by mould on its leaves, trunk and branches, lacking the new shoots and even blossom that we see on the lemon, whose top growth I can examine from our balcony. At the local garden shop Evangelina has recommended a spray – a mix of Sivanto (2.5 m/l to 5 litres water) and Electro pesticide (ditto mix) - to kill, and by resting on the leaves, break the life cycle of the ‘black spiny insects’ as she calls them.       

  “Yes! They are now all over Corfu since three years. We had a meeting of agronomists from here and from the mainland, where in many places citrus is a commercial crop. They said this infestation is confined to Corfu. 'We are not worried'. They are wrong. It will go there.”   

** ** **

I said to Lin “I’d like to drive to San Stephano to see of I can find out how you get a ferry to the Diapontian Islands” 

"I think you're mad"

Sunday had been sunny. Monday started overcast and by midday it was raining steadily - rain that sets in and does not let up, driven by a confident wind from the north east. I don’t drive much. I set off in our small hire car for Sidari about twenty kilometres north and had most of the roads to myself, turning west in Sidari and winding back a few miles down the north east coast to the small haven at San Stephano where I recorded a weblink displayed on the upperworks of a ferry moored in the deserted carpark, the Diapontian islands Erikoussa, Orthoni and Mathraki on the close horizon. A rock cluster like a sailing ship driving towards the closest of the islands.  The rain had cleared. On Corfu - just 40 miles north-south - there can be several kinds of weather at the same time.

The Diapontian Islands off San Stephano Harbour

Driving south towards Avliotes and Arrilas, I stopped for a coffee and butter croissant at Melisito bakery, where the warm wind, turned even further east, made the plastic screens, between me and the rainswept Trompetta panorama, rattle like a road drill. I'd returned to the rain zone. The peaks of Albania lay across the horizon under the overcast. 

Instead of taking the usual sharp left turn in the middle of Arkatades I took a punt on driving on up towards the web of small roads heading for Paleokastritsa. The road shone with the driven rain. Trees and shrubs drooped with the wet. 

Down a slope, almost in the verge, I saw two trudging figures who resolved into walkers. I stopped and gestured for them to take a lift; travellers from England on a walking holiday, for the whole rainy week. They clambered inside with their wet coats and sticks steaming the car windows. After tea and chat in their borrowed study – cosy and well furnished – down an alleyway in the one way section of Bella Vista, I drove down the mountain to the familiar Paleo road, turned past the donkey sanctuary on the thin splitting road through the fields and hedges to Skripero and home. 

How the days have passed. So swiftly. It’s now a little chilly in the evenings. Lin and I keep warm with more woollies and an electric fire – on and off -  at supper; sometimes watching police procedurals in icy places like Helsinki northwards on Netflix.  For days the sky has been almost cloudless. 

We've been rebuilding the balcony bannisters. They were becoming hazardous, even rotting in places. I’ve just dug out two olive planks, used for a makeshift door that I found years ago in the apothiki. I suspect two house builders were laying a fine tongued and groove floor, and agreed to keep two off-cuts. After removing most of the nails and sanding bare, I sawed squares, drawn out by Lin to miss the cracks and remaining nails in the hard sweet smelling wood. These now top and protect the balcony uprights. 

Scale insects, ants and citrus trees

Every morning I check the citrus leaves. Are there or are there not more scale insects? Where I see an accretion I examine the small black round shapes, sometimes having a white halo round their edges; more like a flattened egg, with no sign of insect legs or life.

Are these the remains of scale insects I’ve already killed? Are these eggs? If so what brought them here? Lin learned in the internet that the male insects can fly and are the means – somehow – of delivering the females, which don’t move, to the underside of leaves, where, in symbiosis with ants, who herd them and harvest their excretions of honeydew, they gather in increasing numbers. Is the white margin I see round these ‘dead’ objects honeydew? I need a microscope.
Mark expresses frustration that we have no citrus industry here, “but there are vast commercial orange and lemon farms on the mainland. Why are we not hearing scientific advice on treatment and prevention from there?”
I’ve seen severely pollarded trees whose owners think that’s a solution. But how will that work when the trees again grow leaves and blossom? Won’t the infestations start again? Paul, Mark’s brother, tells of his neighbour having insecticide sprayed by a pest controller over his orange tree
“He asked me to keep our windows and door on his tree’s side of our house closed 24 hours”
That tree already bears oranges but its leaves have black mould. Will such treatment affect the fruit? Even if it kills the scale insects I am not clear how it can stop them returning, and needing further insecticide, which is why I lean towards our regular spraying with non-toxic (to us) olive soap solution, while also killing ants and using sticky bands to deter more ants from climbing the trees to encounter scale insects. A couple of days later Paul told me his neighbour ... “has oversprayed. Leaves are dropping off his orange tree” Was there also herbicide with the insecticide he’d sprayed I wondered.
Perhaps I should apply asvesti – lime wash as used to mark the edge of steps – and also on many garden trees. Perhaps I should explore the sticky stuff that can be painted around tree trunks.

The other morning I was helped by my neighbour, Katerina, to make up and apply an asvesti mix. Using a big brush we covered the first five feet of three citrus tree trunks.

Many people do this regularly to deter fruit tree pests, not specifically scale insects, which do not arrive by climbing trunks. Will this help or harm? On the smallest tree, which I’ve not lime-washed, I spied what Lin and I have been hoping for – a ladybird, possible predator of scale insects. Just one.

'Ladybird, ladybird, don't fly away home!'

'Restored to Life'

"So perhaps there's a small part of the past here, that won't pass away". Two years after I terminated Delta Leisure's licence to retail my stepfather's Out of Town DVDs, on grounds of 'breach of contract' - have to get the legal language right - and their 'insolvency', I have signed an Acquisition Agreement with Tim Beddows on behalf of Network Distributing Limited, to relicense not ony the existing DVDs in a revised format with new artwork by our son Richard, but to include with this material more of my stepfather's films that have been recently unearthed, and most exciting of all, and more significant for me and others interested in Jack Hargreaves' work including Network's MD, to recover scores of 16mm films and 1/4" sound tapes of Out of Town episodes that Jack stored in his shed at Raven Cottage, Dorset, (more details here) and, after perambulations, are stacked on dexion shelves in our Birmingham garage.

Jack Hargreaves - the invention of the camera from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

29th Apr 2017: message from Julian Schmechel  Simon. You are far too modest to agree with this I know, but perhaps without realising it, you have become the guardian of Out of Town, and Jack's other work, recording a now vanished rural way of life. Speaking as one who grew up in this 'Former Culture', and who well remembers taking part in many of the activities catalogued, I am aware of the immense debt owed to you. You may think my words melodramatic; but consider. When you and I are both dust, future generations, (living in the 'cracks between the concrete') will be able to view Jack's programmes, and have insight into the rural past. This is due almost entirely to your efforts, and for that, 'Thank you'
30/4/17 Dear Julian. I was going to get in touch now the days grow longer and you have real sun instead of that helping domestic light. Your words are lovely and not, to me, melodramatic. They do not embarrass me even if I cannot embrace them alone as I've had such help in the project you praise so eloquently - Linda my wife, my son (recall the draft art work), Paul Peacock who wrote J's biography, and now - he prefers to stay in the background - the businessman Tim Beddows from Network Distributing with whose company I'm about to sign a contract (we've been meeting on and off for two years), Simon Winters from Kaleidoscope, many people whose thought and words on these pages have reminded me that there is a legacy to be cherished, the presence of Jack in my head - alive from when I was a 6 year old, and after he left us, Tony Herbert and Ian Wegg who know so much about Southern TV and the date and origin of so many specific episodes of OOT, friends I've not named who've helped in the storing of the old film and sound tape in my garage and its transport in earlier years, Dave Knowles (able to find his way around the Southern TV studios, at Northam Southampton, in the dark) with his re-introduction of Old Country from which he's hardly recovered his investment (a labour of love from one of Jack's original technical team at Southern), Dean Hoffman in Maryland USA who has helped create restorations in draft of the OOT archive and sent them back to me across the Atlantic, Dave King who rescued old OOT recordings from storage shelves that mighty Endemol wanted cleared, their contents discarded - forever; Francis Niemczyk who first took on the recovery of the archive films and tapes and Frazer Ash from BUFVC, who now continues this with Francis, learning all the time. Charles Webster, ex-Delta, who for a long time kept my chin up on the 'Restored to Life' project when it seemed to be going nowhere. You are probably right (I'm not that modest) in saying that I have a co-ordinating role among these friends and helpers and inspirers, and thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to make this list of our 'team'. I, like Jack, value my past. I, following him, respect the past, but not uncritically, sentimentally or other than slightly nostalgically. I'm not one who believes in what the late Zygmunt Bauman referred to as 'retrotopia', in a world where so many find it increasingly impossible to reside faith or hope in the future. I think Jack wavered between optimism and the pessimism he seemed to express in that ode from whose last lines you quote about love of country (not nation, but the countryside and all that it had been and could be). As he said of dying, it didn't scare him too much; what really vexed him about no longer being around was 'not knowing what happened'. I think we perhaps feel the same. Much affection and good wishes, Simon (in Corfu enjoying the sun of beloved Greece and loving the contemplation of dust - ingredient of that unknown substance that we and the world need - humus).

Our son, on a surprise visit, works on graphics for the new Out of Town DVD issue

Vol 1 Out of Town to be released 31 July 2017. Art: Richard Baddeley

Hugely popular and fondly remembered to this day, Out of Town saw Jack Hargreaves exploring rural life in Britain – reflecting on its character, traditions, history and folklore, and the skills that had passed from generation to generation. With his extensive experience, knowledge and love of the countryside, Hargreaves' easygoing presentation style enthralled both rural and urban viewers – the series becoming so popular it ultimately ran for over two decades. An unsentimental record of a bygone time, Out of Town set the bar high for all "country matters" series that followed in its footsteps. This volume contains the 35 editions that remain from 1980/1 – including the unbroadcast 21st anniversary special and an episode never previously released on DVD - being the last episode of Out of Town Series 22 (of the total 23 OOT series) in which JH warns, in an episode broadcast in Sept 1980, that there will only be one more series, and signals that 'it's time to go.' (My stepfather saw the writing on the wall for the future of Southern TV!). No-one had a complete version of this OOT episode on record, but it was discovered that one half of it was held by Ian Wegg and the other half by Jack's great cameraman, Stan Bréhaut. Stan's widow, Marion Bréhaut, and Ian Wegg gave their two halves to Simon Coward of Kaleidoscope. He has put those two parts together and remastered the whole episode for Network. It's not the only extra on this new OOT issue, but I'm so glad it's resurfaced and so grateful to Stan's wife and Ian. Other material on Network's OOT Vol 1 DVD, includes Oliver Kite's Summer in Kite's Country, as well as Jack's Learning to Fish, a B & W film he made in in 1966. More material in this volume is, as yet, unannounced by Network. 

Hod Hill, Stourpaine now - a landscape from the OOT clip our son used to create the DVD cover (photo: Graham Beddow)

*'Restored to Life' - our restoration project takes a name from a phrase in a novel by Jack's favourite author, Charles Dickens, in this case 'A Tale of Two Cities', who's first lines J could recite with such pleasure. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.'....

*** *** ***
Saissetia oleae colonies extract large quantities of sap, causing general host debilitation and build-up of sticky honeydew deposits on nearby surfaces. The honeydew may attract attendant ants. Sooty moulds grow on the sugary deposits. Badly fouled leaves may be dropped prematurely. The older insects are usually quite easy to see as dark grey or brown-to-black lumps on leaf undersides and stems.
As a result of some pest-on-predator imbalance, perhaps caused by an exceptionally cold spell in March, citrus trees all over the island - and probably beyond - are affected by a plague of black scale insects. The females settle on the underside of a leaf and attach themselves to it, sucking sap; weakening - possibly fatally so we have been warned - the whole tree. The males fly between leaves and tree spreading the blight. This is the first sight we've had of this problem in 10 years.
"I assume the females also fly" said Lin "until they attach themselves"
The female insects, once clustered under a leaf, exude honeydew which attracts the spores of the same damp sooty mould that settles on many surfaces during winter. The mould, covering the top-side of the infested leaves, prevents photo-synthesis. Columns of ants march up and down trunks, branches, twigs and over leaves, feasting on the honeydew, but serving no purpose other than to satisfy their appetite for the sweet stuff.

Sooty mould on the topside of leaves of one of our lemon trees colonised on their underside by scale insects

We had hoped that new growth would surmount the problem, but swiftly the insects began colonising new young leaves. No-one we asked quite knew the best way to treat the problem, or they came up with chemicals of uncertain safety and doubtful efficacy.

A culprit colony on a shed lemon leaf - killed with insecticide soap spray. Is that white stuff honeydew?

I think I understand this hesitancy; that this scale insect infestation – common in many other parts of the world - which I had thought to be a regular local occurrence which our trees, over the 10 years we’ve been here, had been fortunate in avoiding, is new to Corfu. It's just arrived from somewhere else. Hence the relative puzzlement as to what it is and how to treat it. Last night over a drink at Piatsa, Mark who deals with trees, among other skills, told us he’d not come across this before. I stand to be firmly corrected on this surmise. 

Lin studied the problem on the internet and selected her choice of spraying recipe - dissolving, in a gallon of water, a bar of olive oil soap, bought in N.Theotoki Street, with which she mixed two tablespoons of corn-oil for leaf adherence, a teaspoon of wine vinegar and a teaspoon of ground red pepper to deter future pests. We spent a couple of days laboriously sawing and lopping away excess and dead growth from the centre of our trees and off the ends of longer branches - the leaves, thousands of them covered in scale insects and mould, bagged and disposed of; twigs and branches cut up for kindling.
Mark lent us a back-pack sprayer, pressured by hand, with a reaching-wand. After the heat had gone out of the sun the other evening, we began spraying the underside of every citrus tree, working upwards on a stepladder, and by sitting on the apothiki roof and eventually reaching from the balcony where we let a helpful breeze carry liquid to the furthest leaves.
"We have to try to kill the lot in one go" said Lin.
The soaked leaves dripped soapy insecticide onto the ones below, and on us. Testing the effect on a couple of soaked leaves, the insects had turned into a black paste. Our lemon trees and one orange are treasures; not fruit that for all their proliferation here, we, from north of the olive belt, could ever take for granted.
"This mix only works while the leaves are wet"
"They should stay that way at least overnight" I said "I sort of want these little bastards to suffer as well as die"

We used 5 gallons of Lin's insecticidal soap mix on the Citrus Scale Insect infestation

In the days that followed it looks as if the cure has worked.
"At least temporarily" says Lin.
New growth is clear. On old leaves, the killed insect colonies, from turning black mush, are drying into dust that slowly falls away.

A shed, but treated, lemon leaf showing what's left of the Scale Insect colony that killed it

We keep our fingers crossed.