I have been very busy this week and didn't get to see a newspaper and the pictures of the Cutty Sark, or what remains of it, until last night. (Telegraph article here) I find this sort of thing terribly sad.
It was fascinating to read the history of the ship and how it was designed to import foreign food, tea and wool from Asia and Australia. It reminds us how much the Victorians embraced the global food market - this boat was built around the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws. Their policy provided the UK with cheap food for two generations but drove rural communities into poverty.
Perhaps the Cutty Sark had a part in the decline of British Agriculture. There is a suggestion that the destruction of the Cutty Sark could have been arson. Knowing his views on local food, have the police eliminated David Richardson from their enquiries?
Matthew - I can assure you the police have not been to see me about the fire. In fact they have not yet been to see me about a couple of robberies from the farm last year and the County HQ is only three miles away. I'm sure they are too busy filling up forms to bother about crime. And they probably realise I have no problem with imports of tea and coffee. Apart from some obscure and minor production of tea of indeterminate quality in the far south west I am not aware that those beverages are competing with anything we produce in this country