Category Archive for ‘Features’ at Countryside La Vie Magazine

Features

World’s oldest living tree discovered in Sweden

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on October 5, 2008

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The world’s oldest recorded tree is a 9,550 year old spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden. The spruce tree has shown to be a tenacious survivor that has endured by growing between erect trees and smaller bushes in pace with the dramatic climate changes over time.

For many years the spruce tree has been regarded as a relative newcomer in the Swedish mountain region. ”Our results have shown the complete opposite, that the spruce is one of the oldest known trees in the mountain range,” says Leif Kullman, Professor of Physical Geography at Umeå University in Sweden.

A fascinating discovery was made under the crown of a spruce in Fulu Mountain in Dalarna. Scientists found four “generations” of spruce remains in the form of cones and wood produced from the highest grounds. The discovery showed trees of 375, 5,660, 9,000 and 9,550 years old and everything displayed clear signs that they have the same genetic makeup as the trees above them. Since spruce trees can multiply with root penetrating braches, they can produce exact copies, or clones. The tree now growing above the finding place and the wood pieces dating 9,550 years have the same genetic material. It has been tested by carbon-14 dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida, USA. Previously, pine trees in North America have been cited as the oldest at 4,000 to 5,000 years old.

In the Swedish mountains, from Lapland in the North to Dalarna in the South, scientists have found a cluster of around 20 spruces that are over 8,000 years old. Although summers have been colder over the past 10,000 years, these trees have survived harsh weather conditions due to their ability to push out another trunk as the other one died. “The average increase in temperature during the summers over the past hundred years has risen one degree in the mountain areas,” explains Leif Kullman. Therefore, we can now see that these spruces have begun to straighten themselves out. There is also evidence that spruces are the species that can best give us insight about climate change.

The ability of spruces to survive harsh conditions also presents other questions for researchers. Have the spruces actually migrated here during the Ice Age as seeds from the east 1,000 kilometres over the inland ice that covered Scandinavia? Do they really originate from the east, as taught in schools? “My research indicates that spruces have spent winters in places west or southwest of Norway where the climate was not as harsh in order to later quickly spread northerly along the ice-free coastal strip,” says Leif Kullman. “In some way they have also successfully found their way to the Swedish mountains.”

Cuneiform clay tablet translated for the first time

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on September 24, 2008

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A cuneiform clay tablet that has puzzled scholars for over 150 years has been translated for the first time. The tablet is now known to be a contemporary Sumerian observation of an asteroid impact at Köfels, Austria and is published in a new book, ‘A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels’ Impact Event.

The giant landslide centred at Köfels in Austria is 500m thick and five kilometres in diameter and has long been a mystery since geologists first looked at it in the 19th century. The conclusion drawn by research in the middle 20th century was that it must be due to a very large meteor impact because of the evidence of crushing pressures and explosions. But this view lost favour as a much better understanding of impact sites developed in the late 20th century. In the case of Köfels there is no crater, so to modern eyes it does not look as an impact site should look. However, the evidence that puzzled the earlier researchers remains unexplained by the view that it is just another landslide.

This new research by Alan Bond, Managing Director of Reaction Engines Ltd and Mark Hempsell, Senior Lecturer in Astronautics at Bristol University, brings the impact theory back into play. It centres on another 19th century mystery, a Cuneiform tablet in the British Museum collection No K8538 (known as “the Planisphere”). It was found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the Royal Place at Nineveh, and was made by an Assyrian scribe around 700 BC. It is an astronomical work as it has drawings of constellations on it and the text has known constellation names. It has attracted a lot of attention but in over a hundred years nobody has come up with a convincing explanation as to what it is.

With modern computer programmes that can simulate trajectories and reconstruct the night sky thousands of years ago the researchers have established what the Planisphere tablet refers to. It is a copy of the night notebook of a Sumerian astronomer as he records the events in the sky before dawn on the 29 June 3123 BC (Julian calendar). Half the tablet records planet positions and cloud cover, the same as any other night, but the other half of the tablet records an object large enough for its shape to be noted even though it is still in space. The astronomers made an accurate note of its trajectory relative to the stars, which to an error better than one degree is consistent with an impact at Köfels.

The observation suggests the asteroid is over a kilometre in diameter and the original orbit about the Sun was an Aten type, a class of asteroid that orbits close to the earth, that is resonant with the Earth’s orbit. This trajectory explains why there is no crater at Köfels. The in coming angle was very low (six degrees) and means the asteroid clipped a mountain called Gamskogel above the town of Längenfeld, 11 kilometres from Köfels, and this caused the asteroid to explode before it reached its final impact point. As it travelled down the valley it became a fireball, around five kilometres in diameter (the size of the landslide). When it hit Köfels it created enormous pressures that pulverised the rock and caused the landslide but because it was no longer a solid object it did not create a classic impact crater.

Mark Hempsell, discussing the Köfels event, said: “Another conclusion can be made from the trajectory. The back plume from the explosion (the mushroom cloud) would be bent over the Mediterranean Sea re-entering the atmosphere over the Levant, Sinai, and Northern Egypt.

“The ground heating though very short would be enough to ignite any flammable material – including human hair and clothes. It is probable more people died under the plume than in the Alps due to the impact blast”.

Ruth Ellis

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on May 10, 2008

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The fifteenth, and the last woman hanged by the British judicial system

Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in England went to the gallows at Holloway Prison on July 13, 1955, aged 28. She was executed by Albert Pierrepoint and his assistant, Royston Rickard. Her case is memorable due to the fact that she was hanged, rather than having a life sentence. She would most likely have been forgotten in a few weeks by most people if not for this. Born in the seaside town of Rhyl in 1927, Ruth was brought up in Manchester. When she was seventeen she fell in love with an American airman, who was killed in 1944. She later gave birth to his son. In 1950 she married a divorced dentist with two sons, 41-yearold George Ellis. Unfortunately, George was an alcoholic who became violent when drunk. Ruth a jealous and possessive woman was convinced he was having an affair. Consequently, the marriage deteriorated rapidly. When Ruth gave birth to a daughter, Georgina, in 1951, George refused to acknowledge paternity, and they separated shortly afterwards.

Needing to keep two small children, she dyed her hair blonde and became a club-manageress and call girl. Whilst working in London’s Carrolls Club, in 1953 she met handsome, sophisticated David Blakely who was three years her junior. He was a well-mannered former public school boy, but also a hard-drinking racing driver with expensive tastes. Within weeks he had moved into her flat above the club, despite already being engaged to another girl.

After having a miscarriage in 1953, Blakely offered to marry her. She refused, but could not get rid of him. In 1954 Ellis had an affair with Desmond Cussen who was a friend of Blakely. Whilst they knew of each other’s involvement, nevertheless, for almost a year, she managed to keep them both satisfied. However, Blakely was not happy with the arrangement and started to get jealous. The beatings began and at various times she received a black eye and broken ankle. Blakely then started seeing other women and came home one night with love-bites on his back. Ruth threw him out. Next day he returned, offering marriage once again. Ruth refused, but still, they stayed together.

Blakely’s affairs with other women continued, and, on 6th April he told Ruth that he had to visit a mechanic who was in the process of building him a racing car. Ruth was immediately suspicious and followed him to a Hampstead flat. She received no response to her knocking on the door but she did hear a woman’s laughter coming from inside. The following day she returned to Hampstead and kept watch. Her suspicions were confirmed when Blakely finally emerged with his arm around a pretty young girl.

On the evening of the 10th April Ruth returned to Hampstead, arriving near the Magdala public house. Blakely left the pub with his friends at 9.20pm, ignoring Ruth who he noticed was waiting outside. Taking out a loaded revolver from her handbag, Ruth fired a shot at Blakely. This first shot missed him, ricocheted off a wall and injured a passer-by. Ellis fired a second shot and this hit the target and he fell face down on the roadside. Ruth Ellis then walked over to where Blakely lay and fired four more bullets into him. An off duty policeman came from the pub and took the revolver from her. She offered no resistance to the police officer. David Blakely was pronounced dead upon arrival at hospital.

On Monday 20th June 1955, Ruth’s trial began in court number one at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Havers. Her plea was not guilty because she specifically wanted her story told. Taking just fourteen minutes the jury found Ruth Ellis guilty and she was sentenced to death.

There was a huge storm of protest about the sentence and petitions were sent to the Home Secretary. However, it was useless and at 9am on Wednesday 13th July 1955 prisoner 9656, Ruth Ellis was escorted to the gallows in Holloway Prison. She drank a glass of brandy and was led to the trap by executioner Albert Pierrepoint.

As was customary, her body was buried in an unmarked grave within the walls of Holloway Prison. In the early 1970s the prison underwent an extensive programme of rebuilding, during which the bodies of all the executed women were exhumed. All were reburied in Brookwood Cemetery with the exception of Ruth Ellis, who was reburied in Saint Mary Churchyard in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. The headstone in the churchyard was inscribed Ruth Hornby 1926–1955. In 1982 Ruth’s son Andy destroyed the headstone shortly before he committed suicide. The grave is now overgrown with yew trees.

On the 8th February 2002 an appeal was lodged with the Court of appeal. It was claimed that Ruth had suffered postmiscarriage depression, that her defence team were negligent and that she was persuaded to commit the crime by Desmond Cussen. The appeal asked that the murder conviction be changed to that of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility, claiming that the prosecution and Judges at the time of her trial had misinterpreted the law.

The appeal was heard on 16th September 2003. The appeal was rejected. The court stated that, as diminished responsibility had not been introduced as a defence to manslaughter until the 1957 homicide act, this element was not available to the Judge at the time, also that provocation would need to be proved, but, provocation could only be used if, she had been under duress immediately prior to the shooting, not at a much earlier time.

International Team Establishes Observatory in Antarctica, Astronomy’s New Playground

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on May 8, 2008

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An unusual new astronomical observatory has been established on the highest point of the Antarctic Plateau, in a multi-national collaboration including China, the US, UK and Australia. An expedition by the Polar Research Institute of China, consisting of 16 people in six specialised vehicles, took three weeks to make the 1200 km long overland traverse to the high point (called Dome A) from Zhongshan station on the Antarctic coast.

The observatory installed by the Chinese team must withstand some of the most extreme conditions on earth. Temperatures are expected to drop to minus 90 C in winter, and the air pressure is barely half of that at sea level. The facility must operate completely unattended until the Chinese expeditioners return in January 2009, as there will be no human being within 1000 km of Dome during this time.

Australia is contributing through the provision of a remotely operated laboratory loaded with international scientific experiments. This facility, called PLATO, was built at the University of New South Wales. It is designed to be fully robotic, operating autonomously for up to 12 months at a time and sending back data via the Iridium satellite network. Powered by an array of solar panels during summer and small, high efficiency diesel engines through the darkest winter months, PLATO will have the smallest possible environmental impact.

“By minimising the need for human support, robotic facilities such as PLATO will play an important role in the future of Antarctic research,” says Dr Jon Lawrence, who led the development of PLATO.

The Chinese Polar Research expedition (known as PANDA) left Shanghai in November and sailed first to Fremantle, in Western Australia, on the Xue Long icebreaker. There, they collected the seven-tonne PLATO observatory, which had made the 4000 km journey across the Nullarbor Plain from Sydney by road. After 18 days crossing the Southern Ocean, the Xue Long arrived at Zhongshan station, adjacent to Australia’s Davis Station on the Antarctic coast. Here, PLATO was loaded onto a sled and filled with the 4,000 litres of jet fuel that will power it throughout the winter.

After completing the long traverse to Dome A, the Chinese scientific team has now successfully installed PLATO. Its operation will be monitored by the international collaborators via satellite. Aglobal team of scientists is contributing to a suite of sophisticated scientific monitoring equipment installed in PLATO as part of the 2007-08 International Polar Year. PLATO’s site-testing instruments include cameras to measure the darkness of the sky, an acoustic radar to measure atmospheric turbulence and a monitor for very short microwave astronomy. Seven telescopes - from universities in China, the US and the UK - will take unique images of the heavens towards the South Pole.

One of the most important experiments is a set of four telescopes built at Purple Mountain Observatory, Nanjing, and the Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics Technology. Each telescope is 14.5 cm in diameter and is equipped with a different filter so that it can observe the sky in a different colour (or wavelength). The telescopes can view a large field of the sky toward the South Pole area. The system will generate continuous images of the sky every 20 seconds for 4 months. Because of the long periods of darkness, this is a scientific study that can only be done from Antarctica and allows the study the variability of the stars and the search for planets around those far-away stars. Over the next few years, China will spend more than $25m constructing a permanent station at Dome A. Already there are plans to build an array of large, wide-field telescopes there to generate continuous “movies” of the sky.

Interest in Antarctica as a site for new astronomical and space observatories has been growing rapidly following publication of a paper in Nature in 2004 by UNSW astronomers, confirming that the highest points of the Australian Antarctic Territory on the Antarctic plateau provide the best sites on earth for astronomy.

Australian astronomers - led by UNSW and the Anglo-Australian Observatory - are developing a concept design for the first large optical telescope for Antarctica. Known as PILOT (Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope), this 2.5-metre diameter telescope will cost over A $10m and is planned for construction at the French/Italian Concordia Station at Dome C by 2012.

Photographs courtesy of
the University of New South Wales.

The Navajo Code Talkers of World War II

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on May 7, 2008

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From 1942 to 1945, the Navajo code talkers took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific. They served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions and Marine parachute units, transmitting messages by telephone and radio in their native language. The Japanese never broke this code.

Philip Johnston originally came up with the idea to use Navajo for secure communications. He was the son of a missionary to the Navajos and one of the few non-Navajos who spoke their language fluently. Johnston was brought up on the Navajo reservation and was a World War I veteran. He was aware of the military’s search for a code that would withstand all attempts to decipher it. He also knew that Native American languages - notably Choctaw - had been used in World War I to encode messages.

Because Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme complexity, Johnston believed it answered the military requirement for an undecipherable code. Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, make it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training. The language has no alphabet or symbols, and is spoken only on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest. One estimate indicates that less than 30 non-Navajos, none of them Japanese, could understand the language at the outbreak of World War II.

Early in 1942, a meeting took place with Johnston, Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, and his staff. Johnston’s aim was to convince them of the Navajo language’s value as code. Tests were staged under simulated combat conditions, demonstrating that Navajos could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in 20 seconds. Machines of the time required 30 minutes to perform the same job. Totally convinced, Vogel recommended to the Commandant of the Marine Corps that the Marines recruit 200 Navajos.

The first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp in May 1942. Following this at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, the group created the Navajo code. A dictionary and numerous words were developed for military terms. The dictionary and all code words had to be memorised during training.

When the Navajo code talker received a message what he actually heard was a string of seemingly unrelated Navajo words. The code talker first had to translate each Navajo word into its English equivalent. Then he used only the first letter of the English equivalent in spelling an English word. Thus, the Navajo words ‘wol-la-chee’ (ant),’be-la-sana’ (apple) and ‘tse-nill’ (axe) all stood for the letter ‘a.’ One way to say the word ‘Navy’ in Navajo code would be ‘tsah (needle) wol-la-chee (ant) ah-keh-di- glini (victor) tsah-ahdzoh (yucca).’

The majority of letters had more than one Navajo word representing them. Not all words had to be spelled out letter by letter. The developers of the original code assigned Navajo words to represent about 450 frequently used military terms that did not exist in the Navajo language. Several examples: ‘besh- lo’ (iron fish) meant ‘submarine,’ ‘dah-hetih-hi’ (hummingbird) meant ‘fighter plane’ and ‘debeh-lizine’ (black street) meant ‘squad.’

Upon completion of his training, the Navajo code talker was sent to a Marine unit deployed in the Pacific theatre. The Code Talker’s primary job was to talk and transmit information on tactics, troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield information via telegraphs and radios in their native dialect.

They received much praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.” Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. Those six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error.

The Japanese, who were skilled code breakers, remained baffled by the Navajo language. The Japanese chief of intelligence, Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, said that while they were able to decipher the codes used by the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps, they never cracked the code used by the Marines.

Even after World War II Navajo remained potentially valuable as a code. For that reason, the code talkers, whose skill and courage saved both American lives and military engagements, only in recent years earned recognition from the Government and the public. The Navajo code talkers of World War II were honoured for their contributions to defence on September 17, 1992, at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

Julia’s Story - A Warning For All Pet Owners

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on February 7, 2008

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Julia Wood (26) and her partner Ashley Emmer (36) look the picture of health but three years ago it was a very different story when Julia nearly lost the love of her life to Weil’s disease – a little known illness that you can catch from your dog.

Julia and Ash’s future flashed before them when Ash was given a survival rate of just 15% all as a result of just a normal day at the office. Julia and Ash’s personal tragedy began only three weeks after Ash had accepted a new job as a Chartered Building Surveyor for a commercial property company in Nottingham. Julia and Ash believe that his near-death experience, involving multi-organ failure (liver, kidney and lung shutdown) may have occurred as a result of completing a survey.

As a healthy and active individual who enjoyed mountain biking and running, Ashley thought he had a strong constitution so when he began to experience flu-like symptoms, he just took to his bed to try and sleep it off. One bed-bound week later, however, he felt no better.

“I was conscious that my new boss would think I was pulling a sickie or that I wasn’t interested in the new job, actually later confirmed by one of my colleagues - but I felt terrible. I could barely walk, my legs were incredibly weak and I couldn’t keep any food down. Later I realised why. I was suffering from liver failure,” recalls Ash.

When Ash told his girlfriend Julia, who was about to graduate, that he was going to drive to his mother’s home in Dunstable in order to go to his local doctor, she feared that it could be more than a bout of “man flu”. Ash’s mother rushed him to the doctor who initially dismissed it as flu. The symptoms worsened over the weekend, requiring home visits from the doctor. It was thought the problem may be infectious hepatitis, causing a serious dilemma for the doctor regarding the potential spread of infectious disease in a hospital. Eventually, Ash’s mother demanded that he was admitted to the Luton and Dunstable hospital where he was later diagnosed with liver and kidney failure.

Julia had been looking forward to her graduation at Gloucester Cathedral, but after the weekend realised that Ash would not be by her side. “I wasn’t really fully aware of how ill Ash was, but believed that he was in the best possible care.” Unbeknown to Julia, whilst she was celebrating her graduation without him, her boyfriend was being ‘bluelighted’ to the specialist liver unit of King’s College Hospital in London at midnight. His condition was now critical.

Ash still remembers his trip in the ambulance as being surreal, but what remains etched on his mind is, “when I arrived on the Intensive Care Ward, I asked a doctor if I was in trouble and she pointed out that I could be hit by a bus, clearly trying to avoid a straight answer; from that I worked out the severity of the situation.”

When Julia got home from her celebrations that same night, her mother and sister ushered her “to come in and sit down”.

Julia remembers: “I was told how ill Ash was and that he was waiting for me to visit. I didn’t know what to expect, but as an Animal Science student thought nothing medical could faze me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. When I got to the ward I just didn’t have the courage to see Ash at first, but eventually I pulled myself together. I found him covered in tubes and attached to monitors; that part I could cope with. What really upset me was his colour, his eyes and his whole body were so yellow and jaundiced due to the liver failure. It was unlike anything I’d seen before and none of the other liver patients looked as yellow as Ash. I couldn’t fight back the tears any longer and had to leave the ward.”

The next few days were critical; Ash underwent numerous tests and biopsies but his condition continued to decline. Then, he developed a secondary lung infection rendering him with only 20% lung capacity. Julia, along with Ash’s family, were faced with complex decisions associated with dialysis to granting permission for a tracheotomy.

Julia recalls: “This was the worst time, Ash was sedated and I had no way of communicating with him. Together with his family we had to make these decisions in his best interests. I went to visit him every day to sit with him, even though the journey there and back was four hours and he was just lying there unable to communicate. I was trying to be as rational as possible, but I honestly didn’t know whether I would ever speak to him again. All I did was to sit, wait and hope.”

Ash remembers the first day or so in the hospital, until being sedated: “I thought I was going for a liver biopsy, but I woke up 8 days later after being put on dialysis. I think I was a bit of a handful for the nurses and not particularly co-operative! The one thing I do remember distinctly was hearing my mother’s voice while sedated, which had quite a positive effect on me. I also remember a kind of mixture of bad dreams and hallucinations. Obviously I was pumped full of drugs as the doctors were fighting the symptoms without knowing what the cause was, which must play tricks with your mind. The build-up to the Iraq war was just beginning and that featured heavily in my dreams. At one point I believed I was on a troop train or a Hercules plane. I think the bleeps from the monitor must have triggered something.”

After spending three weeks in intensive care, Ash was brought round and was eventually diagnosed with the human form of leptospirosis – Weil’s disease. It transpires that the flu-like symptoms he had experienced were the initial signs of the onset of leptospirosis. After being given excellent care at Kings College, he was transferred back to Luton and Dunstable hospital to continue his recovery. Julia and Ash remember the after-effects of the disease as being almost worse than the jaundice.

”The fluid retention was so bad his legs looked horrible – in fact they looked as if he had big stumps like elephant feet. It was difficult to imagine that this would ever subside, but eventually I did.” Julia says.

Ash recalls the day he was allowed to go home as one of the most emotional days of his life.

“I couldn’t wait to get out, but had no idea that I had spent an entire three weeks in hospital. I remember being wrapped in a blanket and thought that it had got cold. It was at this point that it dawned on me that Julia was due to go travelling to Australia. I grabbed her wrist to look at the date on her watch fearful of the fact that she would be off soon.

I then saw that the 2nd November had long past and that she had clearly cancelled her journey. I was so relieved, happy and emotional all at the same time.”

It took Ash a good three months to fully recover before being allowed back to work. The biggest surprise for him was having to learn to walk again as his leg’s muscles had wasted considerably after being bed-bound for three weeks.

His first job back was conducting a survey on an old warehouse in York, which happened to be so heavily populated by pigeons that pigeon faeces completely covered the floors. Well aware of the potential risks, Ash now carries antibacterial wipes everywhere he goes to wipe his hands after climbing or being on potentially infected ground. He is particularly cautious of any cuts he may have or putting his hands close to his mouth as these are the easiest ways to contract the disease.

“I was aware of Weil’s Disease and that rats carried it, but didn’t realise the connection to leptospirosis. I also didn’t realise that it’s quite so easy to catch. All it takes is to come into contact with rat’s urine, or your dog’s urine if it has been infected via the rat, and you can contract the disease. Contact with urine infected water such as rivers and ponds are also a risk. I am now acutely aware of the dangers and would advise people to take precautionary measures to prevent such a disease.”

Julia, whose parents own dogs, reiterates that “we’ve always vaccinated our dogs against leptospirosis and other potentially fatal diseases and I would encourage others to do the same. It horrifies me to think that this disease left Ash fighting for his life with only a 15% chance of survival and that this disease can affect humans as well as dogs.”

Three years on from this traumatic time, Julia and Ash are now happily living together and making the most of what life has to offer.

You may not be able to protect yourself from rats, but you can protect yourself and your dog from catching leptospirosis disease by having him vaccinated. If your pet has not been vaccinated in the last 18 months you could benefit from the vaccination amnesty, which is part of National Vaccination Month. During March your pet can receive a full vaccination course for the price of a booster – saving you up to £30.

Just log on to: www.vaccinationmonth.co.uk
for your voucher and a list of participating vets.

Leicester High School Under African Skies

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on November 7, 2007

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The African world 12 students and 2 staff from Leicester High got to know was not the narrow existence of the tourist or Big Five safari hunter, but the more revealing progress of feeling like an exile in the bush! The human side of Africa was our remote forest camp and school project in the dusty village of Selela in Northern Tanzania where we were the first white group to work and interact with the Masai community. We were able to understand how people lived and what they wanted for themselves. Driving high through the arid savannah, we caught first glimpse of our school - 110 children aged between 5 and 8 with their young teacher writing their sums and Swahili alphabet in the dust under an acacia tree. When we left, we had built a six breeze block high school of two classrooms and two office spaces, had equipped all the children with exercise books and pencils, given the teacher pens and a wall chart and dressed the children in new T-shirts. In appreciation, we were presented with two goats by the Masai elders and invited to join in their celebratory dances. It s not every Saturday morning you are encircled by chanting, leaping Masai warriors. Our rejoinder was to sing Shine Jesus Shine as a blessing on the new school.

Six arduous, gruelling days were spent trekking Mount Kilimanjaro, a magnificently varied hike through dense green cloud forest, emerging into alpine desert with giant lobelias, proteas, senecio tress - then the final slog through a dark volcanic landscape to Kibo Hut to prepare for the night time ascent. Zoe Allen, Mary Goodhart and Sarah Isherwood all reached Uhuru Peak, the snow and ice packed summit of 5896 metres and everyone else made it above 5,100 metres before altitude and exhaustion defeato understand how people lived and what they wanted for themselves. Driving high through the arid savannah, we caught first glimpse of our school - 110 children aged between 5 and 8 with their young teacher writing their sums and Swahili alphabet in the dust under an acacia tree. When we left, we had built a six breeze block high school of two classrooms and two office spaces, had equipped all the children with exercise books and pencils, given the teacher pens and a wall chart and dressed the children in new T-shirts. In appreciation, we were presented with two goats by the Masai elders and invited to join in their celebratory dances. It’s not every Saturday morning you are encircled by chanting, leaping Masai warriors. Our rejoinder was to sing Shine Jesus Shine as a blessing on the new school.

Our camp in Selela under the Rift Valley escarpment was watched over by Vevet monkeys and the shrieks of baboons filled the African darkness. One thing we learnt was that urgency was a foreign concept and time moved differently poli, poli - perhaps not surprising given that two of their generations is equal to one of ours. We were humbled by tenacious people and great resilience and learnt to live simply and appreciate simple pleasures. Leicester High School is rightly proud of the difference its students have made through their fund raising efforts and their physical hard work to the children of Selela whose cheery welcoming shouts of Jambo! Jambo! will live in our hearts forever.

At Leicester High School we are committed to the pursuit of excellence both within the classroom and beyond. Our girls flourish because they can develop their full potential and acquire the skills to turn them into confident, articulate young women in our friendly and close-knit community. Do arrange a visit and see for yourselves all that we can offer, or visit: www.leicesterhigh.co.uk

History of Cricket

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on August 14, 2007

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The cricket season is well underway, and now arguably the second most popular sport in the world. The origins of cricket are obscure and lie somewhere in the Dark Ages probably after the Roman Empire, almost certainly before the Normans invaded England and believed to be played by children living in the Weald, an area of dense woodlands and clearings in south-east England that lies across Kent and Sussex.

History of Cricket

All research concedes that the game derived from a very old, widespread and uncomplicated pastime by which one player served up an object, be it a small piece of wood or a ball, and another hit it with a suitably fashioned club. How and when this club ball game developed into one where the hitter defended a target against the thrower is simply not known. Nor is there any evidence as to when points were awarded dependent upon how far the hitter was able to despatch the missile; nor when helpers joined the two-player contest, thus beginning the evolution into a team game; nor when the defining concept of placing wickets at either end of the pitch was adopted.

However, what is agreed is that by Tudor times cricket had evolved far enough from clubball to be recognisable as the game played today; that it was well established in many parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. Within a few years it had become a feature of leisure time at a significant number of schools; and a sure sign of the wide acceptance of any game and that it had become popular enough among young men to earn the disapproval of local magistrates.

In 1844 the first ever international cricket game was played at Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey between the USA and Canada. And in 1859, a team of leading English professionals set off to North America on the firstever overseas tour. In 1864, another bowling revolution resulted in the legalisation of overarm. The “Great Cricketer”, W G Grace, also made his debut the same year. In 1877, an England touring team in Australia played two matches against full Australian XIs and these are now regarded as the inaugural Test matches. The following year, the Australians toured England for the first time and were a spectacular success. No Tests were played on that tour but more soon followed and, at The Oval in 1882, arguably the most famous match of all time gave rise to The Ashes. Whilst in 1889 South Africa became the third Test nation.

A major watershed occurred in 1890 when the County Cricket Championship was formally constituted for the first time to replace the ad hoc championship criteria that had been used up till then. The period from 1890 to the outbreak of the First World War has become especially nostalgic, seemingly because the teams played cricket according to “the spirit of the game”. In reality, this nostalgia was due to the sense of loss brought about by the war. The era, however, has been called “The Golden Age of Cricket” and it featured numerous great names such as Wilfred Rhodes, C B Fry, K S Ranjitsinhji and Victor Trumper.

India, West Indies and New Zealand became Test nations before the Second World War and Pakistan soon afterwards. The international game grew with several “affiliate nations” getting involved and, in the closing years of the 20th century, three of those became Test nations also: Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

In June 2001, the ICC introduced a “Test Championship Table” and, in October 2002 a “One-day International Championship Table”, with Australia consistently topping both these tables since they were first published. Cricket remains a major world sport and is the most popular spectator sport in the Indian subcontinent. The ICC has expanded its Development Program with the goal of producing more national teams capable of competing at Test level. Development efforts are focused on African and Asian nations; and on the United States. In 2004, the ICC Intercontinental Cup brought first class cricket to 12 nations, mostly for the first time.

Cricket’s newest innovation is Twenty20, essentially an evening entertainment. It has so far enjoyed enormous popularity and has attracted large attendances at matches as well as good TV audience ratings, with the inaugural ICC Twenty20 World Cup tournament taking place in South Africa in September this year.