They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
(Ernest Dowson, 1867 – 1900)
Bit of a melancholy start to this Blog, I know, but during a recent hunt for the elusive Towton Rose, I came across this sight. A field of poppies shimmering and rippling in the breeze, moving like a small rolling ocean. It set me thinking of more recent battles during the first world war and how flowers have now become resonant with war graves. This picture was taken at the Saxton side of the battlefield but the same can be seen in Bloody Meadows at the Towton end. Just think, it is said that the field actually ran red with blood like this, and that’s what is meant to be providing the elusive little rose with its unique colouring. A far-fetched story if we look at it from a scientific perspective but a compelling little legend nonetheless. Did the poor souls who perished at Towton realise that their days of wine and roses were coming to an end when they first manoeuvred on the battlefield that fateful snowy morning?
Anyhow, enough of the glum talk. The weather has been magnificent recently and so dry that great cracks have appeared in the pathways like sinister ley lines. Would a dreadful fate await me if I followed them or would it just mean that my journey would prove to be fruitless? Well, I have not found the rose as yet, despite several 4 a.m. starts, and trudging miles with the morning dew soaking my boots and the nettles stinging my bare legs. I have however, seen some wonderful sights. Majestic old ash trees that line the river banks that must be hundreds of years old, country lanes bursting with cow-parsley, wild oats, vetch, herb robert and comfrey.
Not to mention deer and the startled foxes that bolt into the barley, their bushy tails guiding them like a rudder to safety.
So, the search is still on. If it’s out there, we will find it, even if we have to return next year.

I started with a poem so I shall finish with one. Apologies to any ardent Ricardians reading this but this is an allegorical piece that relates the tale of Henry VII. I will make amends to the Ricardians by giving a mention to the Rose of Raby and the Rose of Rouen in a later Blog.

The Rose of Englande

THROUGHOUT a garden greene and gay,
A seemlye sight itt was to see
How flowers did flourish fresh and gay,
And birds doe sing melodiouslye.
In the midst of a garden there sprange a tree,
Which tree was of a mickle price,
And there vppon sprang the rose soe redd,
The goodlyest that euer sprange on rise.
This rose was faire, fresh to behold,
Springing with many a royall lance;
A crowned king, with a crowne of gold,
Ouer England, Ireland, and of Ffrance.
Then in came a beast men call a bore,
And he rooted this garden vpp and downe;
By the seede of the rose he sett noe store,
But afterwards itt wore the crowne.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” the lady beamed at me as she handed me the pot of tea in the elegant Skipton Castle tearooms. She could obviously see me eyeing the huge Yorkshire scone, brimming with clotted cream and strawberry jam, with a covetous glance. With iron will and steely determination I declined. “No thanks”, I mumbled, with a downturned look of sorrow at the tempting confectionery. I must confess to being the human equivalent of a chocolate labrador when it comes to food, and given half the chance will hoover everything off the table. Mea culpa. If I have sinned, I have sinned in self-defence.
I was waiting for the owner, Sebastian Fattorini to show me the roses in the private castle gardens. Sebastian has been a great patron of The Shepherd Lord and has proved equal to the task in my search for The Towton Rose. I thoroughly recommend a day out at the castle – you won’t see a better preserved one anywhere. Even Oliver Cromwell could not breach its walls. Take a look at the website.
http://www.skiptoncastle.co.uk/
My theory on Rosa Gallica/Rosa Mundi being planted on the battlefield by mourning relatives was being put to the test. The Cliffords had reason to mourn more than most and I was thinking that if there were the same species at Skipton Castle, then just maybe they could have been planted as a mark of respect by one of the later Cliffords. After all, in this day and age, we still place poppies and wreaths at Flanders and the Normandy landings.
When we crossed the barrier and walked into the garden, it was chock-a-block with Rosa Mundi’s every where you turned – the brilliant red and white colours reminding me of the cream tea I had missed out on. “How long have they been there?” I anxiously enquired. “Well, they could have been there for hundreds of years but on the other hand, my father might have planted them. I honestly cannot say” was the response.
So, I cannot come up with a positive ID, and I’ll bet Peter Boyd thinks I’ve got rocks for brains, but I cannot get the notion out of my head. As Sebastian very kindly gave me a tour of the bits of the castle the public don’t get to see, I explained my thesis and he was sympathetic to the argument. As he put it, nearly all the male population of Skipton was wiped out so, surely it would not be improbable for people to visit the battlefield and plant flowers as a lasting memorium.
You know, roses were a very powerful and iconic symbol. They were even used in legal documents. Here is a transcript from one of my family documents, when Rosamund Tempest (nee Bolling) grants some land to her half-brother Edward:

Deed Poll for Grant of Land at Allerton to Edward Bollyng
31 Henry VIII., June 20.

Rosamund Tempest, relict of Sir Rich. Tempest, Kt., gives to Edward Bollyng, of Chellowe, one messuage, with buildings and appurtenances, in Wylsden ; and lands, &c., called Mytham, in the township of Allerton, abutting on Hardyng Becke or Harden Broke on the south and the north, on Cottingley Park on the east, and on the high road leading from Bradford to Keighley on the west. To pay one red rose in the time of roses should it be demanded.

Witnesses – THOS. BOLLYNGE
RANOLPH WILMAN
LAURENCE ROYDS

“In the time of roses”. What a lovely phrase. I have seen it in many other documents too.

I felt better about my crazy theory now and could not resist in buying a huge Yorkshire Curd tart on my journey home. Told you I was a chocolate labrador

Well, the plot thickens.
The rose has long been an evocative symbol.
I used it for my trailer to promote The Shepherd Lord.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=26U_74YHCTg
You can see it in bud at the start of the video and blossoming at the end when Henry Clifford gets his lands restored.
The species Rosa gallica, also known as the apothecary’s rose, was cultivated by medieval monks. The red of the petals is said to represent the blood of the early Christian martyrs. They used to dry the petals and roll them into prayer beads. That’s where the name rosary is derived.
What’s all this got to do with the Towton Rose, you might ask?
Well, I went to see another rose this week. It was a Rosa Mundi, a sub-species of the Rosa Gallica and it was taken from the battlefield over 50 years ago.
A very nice couple called Charles and Jill, read the scribblings on my Blog, invited me to their farm and proudly showed me the rose in this picture that was given to their family many years ago by a butcher from Aberford. This butcher, a plain-speaking honest man had a keen interest in history and horticulture and gifted this beautifully scented rose to the present owners, where it now flourishes. The country air in that part of the world must do you some good as Charles, Jill and the rose in question all look well on it. Charles told me that the rose was originally red and white but has now turned into a deep pink. Peter Boyd, our rose expert, tells me that this often happens with “sports” like Rosa Mundi and that they can easily “revert” to a darker colour.
What does this mean to Peter Boyd and me in our search for Rosa spinosissima? Well so far, following on from my Blog, the article in the Yorkshire Post and my appeal on Radio York, we have now identified four Rosa gallicas as having been taken from the battlefield and not one single Rosa spinosissima. Are we disheartened? Well, I’m not.
There is every possibility that this rose was planted by mourning relatives on the site where their loved ones had fallen at Towton. We know that Edward IV and Richard III maintained a chantry there and there was a strong need for atonement after the battle, when the full force of ferocity had been heaped on the vanquished. Think of it – Cliffords, Percys, Dacres, Nevilles of Raby and many more perished there. What more of a lasting, symbolic and touching memento could you leave than a beautiful Rosa Mundi or Rosa Gallica?
That does not mean that the search for the native Rosa spinosissima is less intense now. We have a lot more work to do but I thought that readers of my Blog would be interested in this historic twist.

Well. This is certainly not a plain Jane – it’s a strikingly beautiful rose (sorry about the dodgy bloke holding it but this picture was taken by a professional photographer and not me).
This is a follow-up piece to my last “rose” blog, now that the rose is in bloom.
This has lived in a private garden in Tadcaster for the best part of 40 years and the owner says it was taken from the battlefield at Cock Beck by her late husband. The lady in question wants me to maintain her anonymity and I have to respect that, so I shall affectionately refer to her as Elsie-Maude, as that was my grandmother’s name. “Come into the garden Maude”, we used to sing to her and it still makes me smile.
Well, the new Elsie-Maude could not have been more accommodating and sat me down in a neat sitting room, full of family photos and mementoes of her past life with her husband, Cliff. Cliff had passed away four years ago and the last twelve months had been difficult for her as she had been in and out of hospital. When she read the Yorkshire Post newspaper, she said it really lifted her spirits. Elsie-Maude proudly showed me around the garden that she had cared for so tenderly with her husband – pride of place was a fruiting apricot tree against a south facing wall. An apricot tree producing succulent fruit in North Yorkshire? Truly, this was a garden of miracles but would it reveal the rose I was so keen to find?
Unfortunately, the rose in question is a Rosa Mundi, sometimes known as the York and Lancaster rose, and not Rosa Spinosissima according to our expert witness Peter Boyd.
A disappointment? Well, not really. This is a rose that was known in the 1500’s and it is not stretching the imagination too much to speculate that someone planted it in those times – perhaps at the scene where a loved one had fallen in the battle?
This raspberry ripple of a rose is one of my favourites and I am delighted to have made a new friend in Elsie-Maude

I have taken a short respite from Rose Hunting and followed the trail of the 3 Peaks in the Yorkshire Dales, as I do every year at this time. We take a party of 10-11 year olds up a peak a day, Ingleborough, Whernside then Pen-y-Ghent.
My ears are still ringing from pre-pubescent voices crying “Mr. Algar”. Mr. Algar, I’m getting a blister. Mr. Algar, can you reach for my water. Mr. Algar, can you tie my shoelace. Mr. Algar, can you carry me.
Yes, carry me! The kids are great fun, well-mannered and generally in good spirits but what with the heat, the daunting view of the ascent and the blistering pace of some of their classmates, we do have a few laggards.
For safety reasons, it’s important to keep the group together. It was my job to bring up the rear and motivate and cajole them to keep up.
Carrying a ten year old up Pen-y-Ghent, along with your rucksack stuffed with medical supplies and water, young Antonia’s rucksack strapped to the front and more jerseys than a cricket umpire on a Test Match Day at Headingley, is not an ideal way to travel. So, I had this great idea of teaching them army marching songs, to get them going:
You’re in the army now,
You’re not behind the plough
You’ll never get rich
By digging a ditch,
You’re in the army now.
Go to your left
Your right, your left,
Go to your left
Your right, your left.
At the last refrain, you skip left to right to left, thus increasing your pace and catching up with the main body of children.
Ingenious, if you ignore the fact that the constant singing annoyed the hell out of Nigel, our Mountain Leader.
Well, so far so good. Until we took the ascent for Whernside, that is.
In the distance we saw the paratroopers, obviously on a training exercise, being beasted across the 3 peaks at double quick marching pace with full kit bag on. Perhaps they should each try it with a small child on their shoulders, I wryly thought to myself.
In fairness to the PT Instructors, running alongside them, they were given lots of positive encouragement. Not at all the screaming, snarling abuse my Dad received when he was training for his Normandy landing.
Well, the next events were out of my control. I was so busy gazing at and sympathising with the soldiers that I had not seen what my little troop of girls were up to behind my back.
They lined up on the fringe of the path, marched on the spot, saluting as they sang:
You’re in the army now,
You’re not behind the plough etc.
The military PT Instructor wet himself laughing and immediately acted up into a stereotypical Drill Sergeant character, shouting at his squaddies. “Come on you ‘orrible lot, these little girls are tougher than you!”
The poor squaddies, strained to the limit were not impressed. Red faced and squirting visible drops of perspiration, they scowled at me as they jogged past, their heavy bergens bouncing on their backs.
My humble apologies to Her Britannic Majesties Forces

Saturday was almost a perfect day (if you take the England football result out of the equation).
The sun was standing high in the sky and there were few clouds to break up the blue.
On my way to continue the search for the rose, I stopped off at The Crooked Billet to see my friends from Towton Battlefield Society. They were preparing for a visit from some young archeologists and one of the attractions were the archery butts, an area that includes a couple of very rare old apple trees, including a Yorkshire Greening.
Now I have always fancied myself as a latter day Robin Hood so I just had to have a go.
Under expert supervision, I pulled back the drawstring on a 45lb bow and loosed off a number of arrows at the target, even managing to hit the bull with one shot. I must have looked too smug as Ian then passed me a bow with a 120lb draw weight. He said “just get the feel of that, you won’t be able to do much with it. But it will give you an idea what power is in that for a man that can fully draw it.” He then passed me the most lethal looking bodkin arrow that looked vicious enough to shoot through a stone wall. I held firmly on the bow and heaved to pull the drawstring back, like an imposter trying to pull Excalibur from the stone. I did not want to be entirely embarassed so I sucked in a bit more and loosed off this monster of an arrow. I actually managed to hit the target, albeit in the bottom right hand corner.
Ian then demonstrated how to do this properly. With expert and fluid control he sank several arrows bang smack in the middle of the target. Only problem was, they were nearly impossible to remove from the dense straw, so great was the force they had penetrated the target with. An armoured knight would have no chance against these. Even if the armour wasn’t penetrated you would end up with serious internal injuries.
Next we tried lobbing – firing arrows way up into the air to hit a target on the ground, just as the archers would have done at Agincourt, Crecy and Towton. It was great fun and I wasn’t too cringeingly bad at it as a novice.
Then, Ian took the field with his mighty long bow. The yew strained and sent an arrow so high into the air, I was convinced it was going to puncture the ozone layer. When it eventually came shimmering and shivering to earth it landed way beyond our field and into the one beyond in the farmer’s barley.
I was absolutely smitten with this new sport and it was hard tom tear myself away and continue on my quest for the rose.
The sun beat down on my neck as I trudged the path and returned to where I had previously been before the roses were in bloom. The hedgerows were full of roses of colours from pure white to a dark pink hue but finding the exact spot where the best candidate had previously been spotted by me proved elusive. I divided the stony bank into squares and climbed up and down the slope to each one scanning the ground but to no avail. Where was the blasted thing? The sun began to scorch, I was getting hot and bothered and I was running out of time – I had promised to pick my wife up from the hairdressers at 5 p.m. and I was going to be late.
Dejected, parched, stung with nettles and scratched with thistles, I turned my way back and trudged towards the path. Then. What’s that? It’s not supposed to be there. It can’t be. Yes it is. I found what I was looking for (funny how the memory plays tricks on you cerebral GPS system). As you can see she is just about to come into bloom. She has the characteristics I have been told to look for. Bristly stems rather than thorny ones. Nine leaves. Grows no more than 3 foot off the ground. The leaves may be too big for Rosa Spinosissima but this looks to be a damn fine rose. There will be big blousy petals when it comes into full bloom in a few days time but will they be tinged with red? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, I arrive late at the hairdressers and I’m told I look like a scarecrow. I get a right ticking off but you know what? It was worth it

Second posting on my quest to find the elusive rose. Last time I looked in this area, I saw one particular rose that may just have been the one I was looking for – it had short fat hairy legs rather than long thorny ones and I was told that this was a trait I should look for. It was not in bloom though, so I needed to return to get more positive ID when it came into flower. Unfortunately, it has rained a lot since I last visited and the grass and teazels have covered everything. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. I had to abandon that particular search and will return with reinforcements at the weekend.
I therefore turned my attention elsewhere and used my knowledge of the battlefield terrain to find a nice dry stony spot, where reputedly, the rose would flourish. It has been said that the local farmers have grubbed up this iconic rose as they were plagued by souvenir hunters trespassing on their land. When I saw one growing half way up a cliff face, I thought ahah, this is one spot where the farmers could not have reached. As you can see from the photo, there were two cavities in the cliff that were home to a family of kestrels.
My tentative climb up the cliff face put me in mind of the scene from the film Kes, where young Billy Casper climbs up the ruined monastery wall to steal a young kestrel chick.
Now, I used to shin up the walls of King Alfred’s castle like a rock lizard, when I was a 5 year old, and was always the daredevil that would think nothing of jumping the chasm between the big and little rock as we called it then. Later, that became the prerequisite for joining our gang.
I don’t know what possessed me, standing there gazing half way up the summit, a stocky, fifty-something year old bloke with a busted knee, to think I could climb it with impunity – but climb it I did. Although not so sprightly this time. My weight caused a lot of the cliff face to give way beneath my feet and I set off several mini avalanches. I realised, as I was climbing, that the same footholds would not be there on my descent but, no point in turning back – I had to press on.
I got as far as I could but there were no more purchases to get a hold of so I had to take a picture from where I was delicately perched. Lean back. More rock crumbles underfoot. Lean some more. Whoops nearly lost my balance. Don’t look down – you know you don’t like heights. Raise the left arm a little more to get the bloom into the shot. Crane your neck. Click. Whirr. And there we have the imperfect shot that is posted on this blog.
Camera, safely tucked in pocket. Slide down the cliff face, grazing hands and shins. Kestrel peers out and thinks what’s that daft beggar doing. Fall down the last ten feet and spin around when I land with such force that I am propelled through the brambles at the foot of the cliff, dripping my own blood onto Towton Dale just as those poor souls did in days of yore.
Is this the Towton Rose? Probably not but I will have to let the expert, Peter Boyd be the judge of that.
Then homeward bound, but it is dusk. I didn’t reckon on that. My path home takes me over the bridge at Cock Beck and up the eery path that the Lancastrians ran down, screaming and fleeing for their lives.
I never like walking down that path, even in broad daylight. There are twisting roots on the path, and ruts in the mud that trip you. The lane is canopied over by hawthorn, elder and blackthorn that envelope you from the sky and the womb-like space feels oppressive and stifling.
You always want to look over your shoulder as if you think someone is following you.
It is very likely where my ancestors Robert and Tristram Bolling, father and son, made good their escape with Somerset and his retinue, charging over the old Norman bridge – you can still see bits of the old masonry in the beck with the stonemasons mark on it – leaving the common soldiery to meet a grizzly end. I wonder if DNA can transfer something into the psyche, as I am normally a rational man, but the place gives me the jitters.
Then, out of this sylvan tunnel, and I feel I can breathe again.
Rabbits, disturbed by my late appearance, show their white rumps and scuttle off into the hedgerow whilst the daft bumbling pheasants meander by, hardly taking any notice of me at all in the fragrant lanes in the twilight.
And so it is home to bed again, waiting for tomorrow’s adventure. If the rose is out there, I am determined that I am going to be the man to find it!

There has been a lot of media attention on Towton battlefield this year, and therefore I was delighted but not entirely surprised, when I got a request to help search for the elusive Towton Rose or the Battle Rose as it is locally known. Peter Boyd is the worldwide expert on Rosa Spinosissima, a very clever man. I have put a link to his Website on my Blog.
Legend has it that this white rose, flecked with red, only grows on soil that has been enriched by the blood of those who fell at Towton. The red is meant to signify the blood of the routed Lancastrians.
It was once quite common but souvenir hunters and farmers, disgruntled at their land being trespassed on, have between them, grubbed all the roses up. The last recorded sighting was in the 1940’s.
In 1969, a 79 year old farmer, Mr. Albert Bailey stated:
“But we were plagued with battle roses. They were small wild roses, red and white, and they grew all over the battle ground. The roses became a nuisance as in summer people invaded the field to dig up the bushes and every time someone left the gate open and the cattle got out. In the end we had a blitz on the roses and dug them all up. I haven’t seen one now for over twenty years. It is a funny thing, scores were dug up by visitors but, as far as I know, they would never grow away from Towton.”

Local legend would have it that enterprising Saxton villagers sold these bushes at half a crown a time.

An earlier mention appears in Planche’s poem written during a stay at Grimston Park in the 1850’s, the first verse running:

There is a patch of wild white roses that bloom on a battlefield
Where the rival rose of Lancaster blush’d redder still to yield;
Four hundred years o’er them shed their sunshine and their snow,
But in spite of plough and harrow, every summer there they blow;
Though rudely up to root them with hard profane you toil,
The faithful flowers still fondly cluster round sacred soil;
Though tenderly transplanted to the nearest garden gay’
Nor cost, nor care can tempt them there to live a single day!

I will be visiting Grimston Park (a private estate) tonight to see if any of the roses have survived there.

Wish me luck on this most romantic of quests.

This is the second post I have written in tribute to my friend Riikka Nikko who specialises in producing artwork, always with Richard III as the central theme.
I bought one of Riikka’s paintings a while ago but this image is a photograph, a really good photo as a professional photographer recently bought this one at an exhibition.
It has a real haunting quality and looks like it’s a window into another world.
It’s amazing when you think about the technology that allows you to strike up these friendships with people in far off climes. She lives in Finland and is an art student and I have never met her but you build up your own mental picture of what the other person is like. She describes herself as shy and lacking confidence – stereotypical perhaps of the tortured artist. I am sure you’ll agree though, that she is exceptionally talented and I predict a great career for her as an artist.

Many of you who follow my Blog have asked me to write some more about life on my little farmlet. Here are two new additions to keep up my egg production quota and I’m pleased to say that the bantams I wrote about last time, have settled in well. I’m sure one of the chicks is a boy because he is slightly larger than his sisters and he has feathered feet. They really amuse me as they follow their mother around the chicken coop, continually keeping up a squeaky noise, not unlike an old Raleigh bicycle with a rusty wheel.

I love coming down here. Now that the weather has warmed up you can literally smell the earth and when you walk the meadows you can sense the sap bursting from the rich sweet stems of grass. I weed the vegetable plot, overseen by Bob Frederick the Scarecrow, with his wisps of white candy floss hair fluttering across his sinister forehead like some rustic Jimmy Saville – “’Ows about it Mr. Algar? Sir Jim here, will fix it for you to have a bumper crop of potatoes this year! Ow’s about that then?”

In the top fold, the sheep and goats have made short work of munching the pasture, so that all that’s left above the top two centimetres are nettles. Saizer, the Ouessant sheep is becoming a bloomin’ nuisance, continually head butting me and raking my leg with her front hoof when she wants feeding a carrot. I did not know whether animals were right or left handed but Saizer definitely likes to lead with her right, and delivers several painful jab combinations that would put Ricky Hatton to shame.

It’s time to move them to the next field but not until the girls have been sheared. This year I have a professional shearer coming to do the job. It costs only 4 Euros a sheep and I reckon that’s a real bargain because it’s one job I do not like doing and the poor things end up looking a bit punkified by the time I have finished. Tan, the biggest ewe weighs in over 90kgs – that’s as big as some tups (rams). And when you try and hold her down and shear her you know you have a fight on your hands. You can tell she is a big girl when she bleats. Whenever I approach the field, I whistle the theme tune from the film The Long Ships. Dad ah dah. Dah ah dah. And that sets them off running and bleating towards the sheepshed. The goats give off a high pitched “Niii, Niiih”, Saizer bleats in an alto fashion and by the time we get down the octaves to Tan we have a deep Russian bass “baah”, not unlike a basso profondo singing an aria from Turandot.

It saddens me to think that I may have to leave them behind some day. As you know, ‘Er indoors wants me to sell up and buy another place in rural Yorkshire. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m as proud a Yorkshireman as the next and the family have lived there since 1066 but somehow, Normandy will be a hard act to follow. There’s the climate for a start. I love to grow my own vegetables and they do better in the warmer clime of France. I have been trying to figure out why the move has sent me into such internal doubt and turmoil. It has taken a long time to arrive at the answer, but I think I have it, now that I have been reflecting on my own behaviour. It’s the fact that I cannot really plan ahead and people like me that like growing things, always have their eye on the future so that they can get a good yield. I have been frantically buying fruit trees – apples, pears, redcurrants, gooseberry, mulberry, you name it, and planting it all out in pots on the patio back in Yorkshire. Unconsciously I must have been thinking about where fate will take me and making sure I have a head start when I get there.

Now that that’s settled I can relax a bit and enjoy my time whilst I am here.