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From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
Email: open.country@bbc.co.uk
Postal address: Open Country, 大象传媒 Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.
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Forster Country
This week Richard travels to a small patch of rural England, known as Forster Country. The author lived here in a house called Rooks Nest (indeed, he wrote Howards End there) and was passionate that it should never be destroyed, even though he said there is 'nothing special about it'! It was its sheer ordinariness - just a typical piece of rural landscape - that made it precious to him.
But even in Forster's time, housing development began to threaten the fields - the new town of Stevenage was being built nearby - and today, new building as the town expands means that Forster Country is still under threat. The are determined to follow in his footsteps to 'Preserve for all time the open green space to the north of Stevenage, which is known as the Forster country.'
After Forster moved to Cambridge, the composer, writer, pianist and musicologist lived at Rooks Nest. She too became bewitched by the fields and trees that provided an escape from city life. Although she was a prolific composer, most of her work is little known and a great deal remains unpublished - though the carol Jesus Christ the Apple Tree will be familiar to everyone who listens to the Kings College Cambridge carol service. This year is the centenary of her birth and The Friends of the Forster Country have organised celebrations in her honour.
Richard joins some of the Friends as they take a walk from the Old Town, along the Chestnut Avenue which leads to Forster Country and learns why this little space is so important to them and why they fight so hard to keep it unspoilt. And he joins in planting an apple tree in honour of Elizabeth Poston, and attends a rehearsal of her most famous carol.
Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk
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