Why today’s hot topic could develop into a flaming row
It took me a while, but I got there. Years after the habit became de rigueur, I’ve finally found myself experiencing semi-violent impulses towards the person of Michael Gove.
Until now I’ve been largely a fan. Famously courteous in an often boorish world, Gove not only helped to steer the UK towards the EU exit (let’s not go there), but also halted the charge of Boris Johnson towards the front door of No 10. Heavens, how much more is a man supposed to do for his country?
But now he has crossed a line: a blazing red line fuelled by coal and crackling logs. In a bid to improve air quality, Gove and his team at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have declared war on woodburners and open fires.
Well, not war exactly. Call it a warning shot across the bows; a few bars of Wagnerian mood music ahead of the comprehensive Clean Air Strategy, due to be announced after Easter. But the heat is on. Though outright bans are off the table for now, the direction of travel seems clear. By mid-century – if we get that far – the natural flame in the hearth could end up following diesel cars, dodos and grid girls into extinction.
I know, I know. We have to do something. It’s the particulates, isn’t it? Those pesky particles known to the cognoscenti as PM2.5 that cause mayhem in the heart and lungs. People are dying and we cannot simply log off from the problem.
Still, the timing of this rumpus is awful. Amid the faded interwar splendour of Maison Nye sit not one, but two open fireplaces. They are dormant for now: scooping up hot ash is one way of starting the day, but as I much prefer coffee and scrambled eggs, I haven’t lit them since the Fourth Duke died.
Until now. Fanning the flames of enthusiasm for these neglected assets, I have determined to get them working again and the chimney sweep will soon be on his way. An adult, apparently – you just can’t get the urchins these days.
And yet, just as my passion for firelight is rekindled, fed by visions of intimate soirées, cosy nights in and perhaps the odd masked ball – we’ll have to fold the sofa up for that one – the chill winds of environmental rectitude come howling down the unswept chimney. “Keep the home fires burning,” urged Ivor Novello in the autumn of 1914. I’m trying, mate; I’m trying.
Poetry, as so often, is being made to genuflect before the altar of progress. Let’s face it: no one ever rushed home in a frenzy to make love before a roaring radiator, or sat round the thermostat enthralled by tales of derring-do. When Prometheus stole fire from the gods, he made damned sure that he got the real thing.
For open fires the clock is ticking. Even upon smokeless fuels the axe may eventually fall. But for now the firelight lasts. In the adapted words of Hugh Latimer, burned by Mary Tudor as a heretic alongside Nicholas Ridley:
“Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a fire in England as I trust, by God’s grace, not even Michael Gove shall put out.”
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