Dear Santa, here’s my Christmas wish list

2:20pm Sunday 21st December 2008

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As children, at this time of the year my sister and I would write our Christmas present wish-list to Santa Claus, set fire to it and post it up the chimney: the heat from the fire would send the burning paper upwards and onwards and all the way to the North Pole, or so we firmly believed.

How on earth this ceremony was ever invented, I have no idea, and our mother always stood by in case the chimney caught fire.

But one thing is for sure: elf ‘n’ safety wouldn’t allow such risky activity today. Apart from anything else, it was exciting and fun – and therefore something to be firmly stamped on in the 21st century.

However, I still have a Christmas wish-list – one for the countryside and because I can no longer send it up the chimney (ours is a smoke free zone) I shall record it here.

Sadly, I don’t think Santa has the necessary powers to grant all my wishes, so I shall also enlist the aid of Defra Secretary of State Hilary Benn, who seems a decent sort of chap; Old Mother Nature herself and the fairy from the top of the Christmas tree, whose magic wand is even more potent than Mr Benn’s.

So let’s start on a cheerful note: 2009 might not be the recessionary disaster most people are forecasting. One of Britain’s leading academics, Dr Peter Slowe, says that the present credit crisis will “blow over by July”.

Let’s hope he’s right – although I should point out he is a staunch Labour party supporter and former colleague of Lord “Spin Doctor Supreme” Mandelson.

Be that as it may, our Countryside Christmas List might have a few baubles which will make life slightly better for Craven folk. So cross fingers, take a deep breath and wish for:

* Better weather: Will Old Ma Nature grant us a normal year with seasons? She has started well with the severe frosts of early December, which have killed the slugs and aphids in my vegetable patch. In some recent years these pests have bred throughout the winter to become a total plague in spring.

And can we have a spring, please – a season which has disappeared in recent years – and a summer too, with sunshine and perhaps even a mild drought? Last spring, I bought a new sprinkler system for my allotment – and it’s still in the shed, unused. With some sun, my onions and shallots wouldn’t rot and my pumpkins would be bigger than tennis balls.

* Healthier environment: Hilary Benn is a vegetarian which, as minister in charge of food production, must be a bit of a worry for livestock farmers, but he does seem to be a staunch supporter of “bio-diversity” – bureau-speak for the proven theory that a diverse wildlife is a vital indicator of a healthy local environment.

Benn is a fervent supporter of national parks – which were, of course, a Labour Party creation back in the 1950s – and has backed the creation of Natural England, a new and surprisingly successful Government quango, and seems to be a firm believer in paying farmers for their work in husbanding the landscape with programmes like Environmental Stewardship grants.

Natural England is also working on a scheme to pay hill farmers for work to protect the peat uplands, which store millions of tonnes of carbon gasses which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

This is good for the farmers and the tourists who come to the Dales to enjoy our upland scenery.

* Resurgent wildlife: Years of work by the Environment Agency to clear up pollution, particularly in our river systems, are beginning to show encouraging results. Otters are back in the River Aire – although rarely seen – and red kites, reintroduced into Wharfedale a decade ago, are breeding happily in Craven.

The River Aire, once one of the most polluted rivers in England, is now a prime angling river, with a growing head of clean-river species like trout, grayling and soon-to-be-introduced barbel. My best Christmas present of all would be to see the salmon back in the Wharfe at Bolton Abbey. They have been spotted down stream at the Tadcaster weir.

* Better planning: The late Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, when asked what he feared most in politics, replied: “Events, dear boy, events.” Well, Craven has had enough planning events in 2008 to last us for many a long year, with hundreds of angry locals blockading various council meetings to protest against unwelcome developments.

Perhaps we should stop feeding our planners – and some of the councillors – on E-numbers and Turkey Twizzlers to wean them off their hyperactive ambitions to concrete Craven over. After all, Skipton’s High Street – untouched by the planner’s hand for 40 years – has just been voted the best in Britain.

I could go on and on, for my Countryside Christmas gift list is pretty long. But if we get just some of the above, I should not be too unhappy.

Finally, however, I should give Santa another willing helper to achieve this Country Christmas gift list: good old fashioned Yorkshire nous. Together, we can make 2009 a cracking year whatever “events” throw at us. Merry Christmas!