Losing game
Sir: Matt Ridley is completely right (‘Don’t grouse about grouse’, 13 August). I am lucky enough to live at Blakeney in north Norfolk with a clear view to Blakeney Point. But since the RSPB, Chris Packham and the National Trust got their hands on Blakeney, things have changed dramatically. I walk every day on and around the marshes and the Blakeney Freshes. This morning — a brilliant, calm day — I strolled for an hour and apart from a couple of warblers, crows and several black-backed gulls, that was it.
When my wife and I came to Blakeney 35 years ago it was markedly different. From our room we would see dozens of lapwings, curlews, warblers, curlews, avocets and waders of all types. Not now.
What has happened is the RSPB (and others) have decided that it must be ‘back to nature’ in spades. So Blakeney Freshes is now infested with otters, foxes and cunning predatory birds.
An old friend of mine, a retired professional gamekeeper from west Norfolk, has told me that nothing will improve until the RSPB and the National Trust come to their senses. Where gamekeepers are allowed to do their job properly, wild birds and wildlife prosper.
Bernard Cowley
Blakeney, Norfolk
Remember Einstein
Sir: Lara Prendergast should take heart (‘Head in the clouds’, 13 August). To be sure, the ability to memorise by rote is a fine thing. I still get pleasure from reciting verse or playing music from memory. But in terms of human intellection, rote learning is a party trick. The skill is in learning how to combine various disparate pieces of information, making connections that perhaps nobody had made before. If all the facts we need are there at the touch of a button, so much the better.
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