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BBC Radio 4 - 92 to 94 FM and 198 Long Wave

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OPEN COUNTRY

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	PROGRAMME INFO

	Saturday 6.10-6.35am Repeated Thursday 1.30-2.00pm


	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, BBC Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.


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	Listen to Open Country for 21 May 2005


	PRESENTERS

	HELEN MARK and RICHARD URIDGE



	More about Helen Mark




	More about Richard Uridge


	PROGRAMME DETAILS

	Saturday 21 May 2005
On this week's Open Country, Richard is travelling not only in distance, but also in time. In the Scottish Borders, he visits the lowly cottage of Fiona Houston - who has abandoned the 21st century and is spending a whole year living in 1790. A museum historian Fiona was researching a history of food in the area ... in the late 18th century, people in the Scottish countryside were well fed on a slightly tedious diet but it was very wholesome. But when she looked at the contemporary food industry, it made her very cross and she declared she could manage better on the old diet. Someone challenged her to do it - and so here she is! Fi discovered that a distant ancestor was a schoolmaster's wife and lived not far from where she does now, so she's based her everyday living on the same life. She's converted a local byre (an animal house) into a wee dwelling - a simple, one-room affair with a box bed and a raised hearth, and all the objects that she is using have been meticulously researched and sourced. She says she's always collected objects from the period and this project was, among other things, a way of bringing these objects to life again. Fi cooks over the hearth and eats mainly produce from her garden and oats and barley. She's made authentic clothes (wearing ordinary working dress) and she writes with a quill pen on hand-made paper from Ireland using ink that she makes out of elderberries and soot, which she says has taken a while to get right. She has started to make tallow candles out of animal fat. Fi feels modern life doesn't challenge people's ingenuity at all. People don't make and mend or improvise at all. And perhaps best of all, it's brought back a habit of socialising ... the house is always full of visitors, and she in turn visits her neighbours rather than phone or email them. As proof, while Richard is there visitors arrive - Patrick Cave-Browne, an expert in primitive technology and the man who taught Fiona to make both fire and candles. He shows Richard how to use a flint and steel and how to use hand-made sulphur matches called spunks. And John Behm - an artist who's also a builder and was one of the men who helped Fi convert her byre into a warm and welcoming home. The Statistical Accounts of Scotland Scottish borders guide 18th century Scottish history timeline Edinburgh museums Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk The BBC is not responsible for external web sites

	RELATED LINKS BBC Holiday Category BBC Country file