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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: [email protected] Postal address: Open Country, BBC Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.


	LISTEN AGAIN


	Listen to Open Country for 8 October 2005


	PRESENTERS

	HELEN MARK and RICHARD URIDGE



	More about Helen Mark




	More about Richard Uridge


	PROGRAMME DETAILS

	Saturday 8 October 2005
A few miles south of Colchester lies Mersea Island, though technically it's only cut off from the mainland at the highest tides. The name means "island of the pool or mere" and you get there by crossing a road known as the Strood which was built around 1300 years ago. It's only five miles long and a couple of miles wide, and although it's a popular spot for Essex weekenders, remarkably unspoilt. And although holidaymakers bring prosperity to the area, the island is also a focus for farming and fishing. Richard's first port of call is L'Esperance - an old sailing boat, now the houseboat home of Gordon and Veronique Eckstein. As a girl, Veronique used to play on the beach and imagine that one day she would own the boat - and now she and Gordon and their two children do! This boat (and others like it on Mersea Island) were built as sailing boats for the rich at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Now it's a surprisingly roomy home. Dougal Urquhart is a ranger at Cudmore Grove Country Park and down on the beach he shows Richard evidence of the prehistory of the island. Created after the last ice age, Mersea has been well known for over 100 years as a good place to find 300,000 year old animal bones like elephant, rhino, hyena, monkey and giant deer. Fossils are found in the cliffs and on the mud flats, which look boring but which house an astonishing amount of wildlife - from molluscs to beetles - which in turn attracts a wonderful selection of birds. Further inland Richard discovers a vineyard, run by Roger and Jacqui Barber. They'd always lived in Essex and when they saw the vineyard advertised for sale they decided it would a pleasant little thing to run in their retirement. Now they not only make wine, run a café, put up tourists - they've recently started up a microbrewery. It may be retirement - but it's jolly hard work! And Richard couldn't leave Mersea Island without taking a close-up look at oysters. Richard Haward is the seventh generation of his family to trawl for the shellfish, and takes Richard out to visit the centuries-old oyster beds. Oyster fishing is a year-round occupation - laying young shellfish down where you want them, making sure they're not too tangled, and sorting the natives from the rock oysters. He says it's too much hard work for some youngsters, but for him it's the ideal life, away from the madding crowd. Email Open Country: [email protected] The BBC is not responsible for external web sites

	RELATED LINKS BBC Holiday Category BBC Country file