The Times - UK (2020-12-03)

the times | Thursday December 3 2020 1GM 19

News

The deer would not be moved. Tens of
thousands of shrubs, trees and flowers
had been planted and the brigands
plundering England’s fifth national
RHS garden would not budge.
All options were considered, garden-
ers said, from ushering them away to
using a net to catch them. However,
amid the pandemic, resources were
limited. To move the herd, officials said,
would require overwhelming superior-
ity of numbers, perhaps a ratio of ten
people to each deer.
Then, options exhausted, the sharp-
shooters arrived. The band of about
nine rogue roe deer wandering free
from their enclosure were humanely
dispatched, the authorities said.
Once news of the cull leaked, though,
residents in Salford were outraged. A
petition opposing future culling at-
tracted thousands of signatures and,
according to the Manchester Evening
News, Tory councillors demanded an
“urgent meeting with bosses of the gar-
dens and council officers”. The incident

patrick kidd

TMS

[email protected] | @timesdiary

Rantzen eyes

Bashir’s bafta

Like an Olympic athlete waiting

on a Russian doping investigation,

Dame Esther Rantzen is following

the saga about Martin Bashir’s

dubious seduction of Princess

Diana with interest in case it

means she gets an upgrade. In

1996, Bashir won a Bafta for his

Panorama interview with the

wronged Mrs Wales, pushing

Rantzen’s feature on stammering

into second. “In the Olympics, if a

medal-winner is found to have

cheated, medals are reassigned,”

she tells me. “If the BBC inquiry

finds Martin cheated, shouldn’t

Bafta do the same for Patsy

[Newey, her producer] and me?”

Neither lockdown nor old age has

wearied Sir Alan Ayckbourn. The

playwright tells The Yorkshire Post

that he is still churning them out at

81, polishing off three plays this

year. Ayckbourn compares himself

to a battleship that takes ages to

stop. “I probably stopped the engines

long ago but I’m still moving,” he

says, then adds: “I’ve bugger all else

to do apart from watch Netflix.”

what planet was she on?

Who says astronauts can handle

new technology? When he was on

the International Space Station in

2015, Tim Peake, below, made a

Christmas phone call to his sister.

“A woman answered whose voice

I didn’t recognise,” the British

astronaut recalls. “Hello, is this

Planet Earth?,” he asked. The

woman said “No” and hung up.

Baffled, Peake rang his parents

and found to his embarrassment

that he’d written down the

wrong number. Even ET found

it easier to phone home.

The Tory MP William

Wragg gives short shrift to

conspiracy theorists who

think the pandemic was a

ruse by our lizard masters

to establish a New World Order. “In

my brief experience of it, the British

state has never been competent

enough to organise a conspiracy,” he

told MPs. “And if it were, plans for

it would have leaked already.”

french disconnection

William Cash has written a lovely

tribute in Mace magazine to the

City financier and raconteur

Patrick Paines, who died last

month. Cash says he was like a

character in a Somerset Maugham

novel, able to charm his way out of

scrapes, including on a mining trip

to Africa’s Gold Coast when he got

out of being beaten up by claiming

to be the new high commissioner.

He went too far, though, when at

Société Générale, which asked its

staff on moving to a new London

office to suggest names for the

meeting rooms. Paines offered

“The Pétain Suite”, “The Vichy

Room” and “The Collaboration

Board Room” but managed to

send his reply to the entire global

mailing list. He left soon after.

George Clooney gets precious if it is

suggested he leans on others. He

tells GQ he is still stewing about

The Washington Post suggesting

that his directorial debut in 2002,

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,

had really been made by Steven

Soderburgh. Clooney says he sent

the paper a pointed complaint and

at the end wrote: “Letter actually

written by George Clooney.”

star sick of his own hits

For some it is a dream to live next

to their pop hero; for the Country

and Town House writer Charlotte

Metcalfe it was a social nightmare.

Unknown to her, a member of the

1980s band ABC had moved in

next to her property, where she

would routinely and loudly play

The Look of Love. One day,

Mark White knocked on her

door and asked her to stop.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said.

“I just can’t bear to listen

to my own music.”

Nine roe deer were

shot dead to protect

a new RHS garden

Mistakes were made, admits RHS after shooting nine deer

Charlotte Wace
Northern Correspondent

threatened to tarnish the prospective

opening of RHS Bridgewater, which

had been delayed by the pandemic.

The 156 acres have been revamped as

part of efforts to “bring back to life” the

historical grounds of Worsley New

Hall. The deer deaths, however, were all

that many focused on. Sam Sykes, who

set up the petition against culling, wrote

that the Royal Horticultural Society

had “prioritised plants over animals”.

He said: “The deer had inhabited the

site for over a century and were ‘moved

on’ by the RHS.”

After 8,000 people signed the

petition, the RHS apologised this week.

“We are very sorry for the mistakes we

have made in our communication to

the people of Salford over the deer,” it

said. “We know we should have got in

touch with our local community and

Salford city council and discussed these

challenges at the time and are sorry

that we did not do this.”

While relocating the deer had been

the “planned course of action”, the RHS

claimed that this would have required

up to 100 people. The society said: “We

are committed to engaging more

meaningfully and frequently with the

community and Salford city council,

especially on important matters

relating to the garden.”

Paul Dennett, the mayor of Salford,

said an investigation would be carried

out and confirmed that talks had taken

place between the city council and the

RHS. Mr Dennett and Lewis Nelson,

the city’s wildlife champion, said that

the RHS “recognises mistakes have

been made”.

The RHS has agreed to introduce a

community engagement process

regarding decisions over the resident

roe deer population.

“In future, should there be questions

as to [the] future

of the herd, those

discussions will be

discussed transpar-

ently at the local

community commit-

tee in advance of any

actions being taken,

working with residents

and councillors”, Mr

Dennett and Mr Nelson

said. “While the council

recognises that herd man-

agement may sometimes be necessary,

we do not believe the decisions taken

reflect an adequate or transparent

process and, in future, safeguards will

prevent decisions being taken in this

manner again.”

The RHS had “ex-

pressed contrition

and regret”, they said.

RHS Bridgewater

was supposed to open

this year but this was

put off to next May. It is

intended to be “a

beautiful green place

to enjoy all year

round”.