SNOWDROPS signal the decline of winter, daffodils bring the expectation of warmer days to come, but nothing symbolises the spring more than the English bluebell.

The most beautiful of British wild flowers, the English bluebell dates back to prehistoric times. Tough enough to survive the millennia since the glaciers of the Ice Age retreated, resilient enough to weather the storms of climate change and loss of ancient woodlands, these elegant floral maidens are being subjected to the unwanted advances of the cheeky and avaricious Spanish variety.

This alarming situation is not new. It has been going on for 200 years and has reached the point where the indigenous variety is threatened with extinction. The blame lies, as with similar incidences where ‘introduced’ varieties take over, with the plant hunters of the 18th and 19th centuries who travelled the world to seek out plants to bring home and grown in our climes.

The Hottentot fig is another example of an introduced species that began its new life in domestic gardens, only to ‘escape’ and spread unchecked – as on Jersey’s south-west tip – to become the bane of countryside rangers and a source of back-breaking work to remove from the natural environment.

Plants that look pretty in a manicured garden are not just out of place in the natural environment, they can unwittingly establish such a stronghold that they overwhelm and even destroy the natural species.

There are similar examples in the animal world, such as the grey squirrel’s domination over the indigenous red variety, and in Australia, where the introduction of the domestic cat has had a devastating affect on the bird population. These innocent introductions show how man in all innocence has changed the environment in such a relatively short time span in the history of our planet.

The beauty of the English bluebell was brought home to me last week as I traversed the lanes and estuaries of Cornwall. There they grow in profusion, carpeting woodland, valleys, hedges and roadsides in a deep blue that radiates in the spring sunshine as it filters through burgeoning pale green canopies before the full foliage of laden summer boughs shades the ground.

But it was not just the millions of bluebells that made me catch my breath and pause awhile to drink in the beauty that is the English countryside at this time of year. Fighting for space with the bluebells were the last daffodils of spring, primroses and wild onion and garlic, the latter to be picked and eaten with spring lamb or stuffed inside a chicken to flavour the meat and to be served with Cornish new potatoes and washed down with – yes, you’ve guessed it – wine from the south-facing slopes of north Cornwall’s Camel Valley or a flagon of local ale.

For those such as I who prize the English landscape above any other, there is one poem that sums up the yearning for the green and pleasant land as it bursts into life. The Victorian poet Robert Browning, who lived for many years in Italy, wrote ‘Oh, to be in England’ out of nostalgia for the land of his birth.

The first verse was in my mind last weekend, though I could only recall the first two lines: ‘Oh, to be in England, Now that April’s there,’ which is often corrupted to refer to spring and not the month.

Passing mile upon mile of well tended hedgerows made me lament the sorry and neglected state of our own and also to ponder on Jersey’s lack of wild flowers in any Islandwide profusion. In Cornwall it is the council authorities who care and maintain the hedgerows that are regarded as assets and an attraction for tourists – the mainstay of county’s economy. It is not uncommon to see hedgerows a mass of apple, sloe and hawthorn blossom, all mixed in with a variety of tree foliage, with wild flowers, including orchids, blossoming below.

For those who by now suspect that I am in the pay of the Cornish Tourist Board, I am equally passionate about other English counties – and Australia and Italy – as many of my fellow Islanders are about their favourite département of France. Each one of us blessed with the ability to travel and broaden the scope of our minds has a little corner of a foreign land that they hanker for. In historical theory it is a tad over 800 years since Jersey deserted the French in favour of the English crown, though it took a few centuries before the peasants noticed any change and 697 years before French stopped being the official language.

Notwithstanding our current linguistic, cultural and political ties, the age-old umbilical cord with the Normandy of Duke William has not been fully severed. Those who are as passionate about la belle France and their French blood should appreciate my equally deeply felt links with England.

Last Friday I had one of those fabulous ‘food heroes’ moments that Rick Stein enjoyed in his televisual travails around our fair isles. As my father learned how to drive a steam train on the Bodmin and Wenford Heritage Railway, I criss-crossed my little corner of a ‘foreign’ land (the upper reaches of the Camel Valley) seeking out fresh local produce and foraging the hedgerows to stoke the novice train driver’s appetite.

At a roadside outside, I met an 80-year-old Cornishman who grows delicious new potatoes in his garden. He has lived in there all his life, and he told me of the unprecedented changes he has witnessed in a county that remains poor in spite of the growing community of wealthy and famous second-homers.

He was also annoyed with Jamie Oliver for serving Jersey Royals at the recent G 20 summit when he had dug his first crop of the season that very morning.

Old local characters such as he are part of the landscape and there are as many clinging on in Jersey and everywhere, come to that. Like the English bluebell, it will take more than an army of interlopers and global warming to root them out.
We must cherish them all.