Drowning under a sea of junk

The result has been to conceal the awful deposits of litter which became so evident during the winter months.

Without doubt, there has been concern at the increasingly common practice of casting rubbish from passing vehicles - I've lost count of the number of drinks cans and bottles, sandwich packs, crisp packets, cigarette packets and sweet papers which have been thrown into the hedges along the route of my morning walk.

Among the junk, I've also noticed old magazines and newspapers, a car battery and even a plastic bag containing a man's shirt and a pair of old shoes.

It seems our society is developing a culture which abandons or ignores personal responsibility. People know they will not be penalised for dropping litter and so there is no incentive to take it home or dispose of it in the many containers which are freely available.

A further complication is that our councils do not seem prepared to appoint staff whose job is to collect litter from the highways and byways - council workers will cheerfully pass abandoned junk without bothering to remove it.

So how can caring members of our society persuade others not to abandon litter in the countryside? Or is this the price of so-called freedom and human rights?

A day or two before compiling this weekly budget, I noticed, during my daily walk, three fields completely full of bright yellow flowers.

This was not oil-seed rape, however, a crop which has regularly painted our landscape with brilliant yellow patches. Instead, the flowers were dandelions, hundreds of thousands of them, all displaying their bright yellow blooms in the warm morning sunshine.

I can honestly say I have never seen so many dandelions in such a small space and for a time I wondered if they had been cultivated for some fascinating purpose.

Certainly the verges along our roads are also rich with dandelions and, when seeing them in such profusion, one must wonder if they are the most numerous of our wild flowers. But these were in fields normally under cultivation and used for farm crops.

The sight made me realise that the dandelion does have a range of possible uses of benefit to man and beast.

In the past it was widely used as a herb in the production of drinks and types of soup which were regarded as cures for a variety of ailments ranging from jaundice to consumption. Pet rabbits love it too!

One of its chief uses was in the treatment of urinary problems in both young and old people.

A decoction was made from the roots and leaves and mixed with white wine, or sometimes the leaves alone were used. It has long been said that dandelion leaves are a very tasty addition to a salad, these forming an important part of the diet of some continental people like the French and Dutch.

One effect of drinking water distilled from a dandelion mixture was to make people sleep more easily and it was also said to encourage rest in those suffering from various fevers. Furthermore, it was effective in cleansing the liver, gall bladder and spleen.

In modern times, the value of the dandelion as a diuretic has been confirmed and it is particularly beneficial in encouraging bile production in the liver and urinary output from the kidneys.

The leaves are known to ease hypertension and when dried contain potassium and can be used in the treatment of a variety of bodily problems.

The root when dried can also be utilised as a form of liver tonic, and a type of coffee can be made from the roasted root.

Refreshing beer used to be made from the leaves and this was very popular with men working in the steel industry, while dandelion wine was equally popular among country folk. And fresh young dandelion leaves are still popular in spring salads.

Whether or not the plant can be successfully grown as a crop is something I cannot answer.

Another interesting feature of the dandelion is its name. It derives from the French dent de lion or even the Latin dens leonis, both of which mean "the tooth of the lion".

Why this flower should be named after that part of a lion is something of a mystery. Some authorities believe it might refer to the long, strong root, while others suggest it indicates the jagged edges of the leaves and yet more indicate it might be something connected with the flower petals or other parts of the head.

Artistic people might also see an image of a lion's face and mane in the flower when it opens wide in the heat of the sun.

For children, of course, dandelions can be enjoyed when the flowers mature and produce those delightful rounded white balls which comprise hundreds of parachutes of white hairs with a seed dangling below.

We've all blown these away while counting "one o'clock, two o'clock" and so forth until all the seeds have gone.

What a wonderful way of helping to propagate the species! There's little wonder the dandelion is so prolific along our highways and byways - a combination of the winds of nature and the breath of people cannot fail to disperse those airborne seeds over a huge area.

But is the dandelion merely a troublesome weed, especially to gardeners and lawnkeepers, or should we regard it as a very beautiful flower and a most useful herb which might flourish even better under cultivation?

Following my notes about inscriptions on horse troughs, I am reminded that sundials also carried similar messages, sometimes placed there in honour of the person who donated them and sometimes merely pieces of advice to those who passed by.

One such verse is:

He that will thrive must rise at five;

He that has thriven may lie till seven;

He that will never thrive may lie till eleven.

On a sundial at a house near Easingwold, which was reputedly used by King James I as a hunting lodge, there is a verse which reads: "Hours fly, flowers die; New days, new ways pass by. Love stays."

A similar verse appears on a sundial which used to stand in Albert Park at Middlesbrough. The verse says: "Time by moments steals away; first the hours, then the day."

The Middlesbrough sundial was unusual because it told the time in New York and Melbourne as well as Middlesbrough. It was a most ornate specimen made from wood with several intricate dials and it was read in the upright position while mounted on a wall, rather than horizontal in the manner of many others.

The verse was inscribed around the four sides of the square frame and this unusual sundial, possibly the only one of its kind, was thought to have been made in 1877 by a firm called Jonathan Smith of Stockton on Tees.

It stood in Albert Park until the Sixties when it was presented to Castle Howard, the stately home near Malton. It was stored there for about 20 years before being painstakingly restored in 1987.

One of the region's oldest sundials is probably the one above the doorway of St Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale, near Kirkbymoorside.

It was carved out of stone in Anglo-Saxon times and boasts the longest-known inscription surviving from that period.

Unlike modern sundials, it is divided into eight "tides", each about three hours long, with long lines showing full tides and shorter lines depicting half tides.

This unique piece of history was lost for centuries and came to light in 1711 when the plaster which covered it was removed.

It was in remarkably good condition and replicas can now be found in museums around the world.

The minster is named after Pope Gregory the Great, who sent St Augustine to England as the first Archbishop of Canterbury to establish the Catholic faith in this country.

The inscription upon the sundial's panel (translated into English) reads: "Orm, the sun of Gamal, bought St Gregory's Church when it was utterly broken and fallen, and caused it to be made anew from the ground, to Christ and St Gregory, in the days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti. Hawarth wrought me and Brand the priest."

This King Edward was not Edward I of England but one of three Saxon kings who reigned before Edward I - some say he should have been Edward IV