News from the north. Apparently there are too many middle-class white people
in the Lake District, and from now on they must all be banned.
It seems the vast majority of visitors who turn up to ramble around on the
fells, pointing at heather, are called Toby and Caroline, and this does not
sit well with a government that wants poor, miserable and downtrodden people
to point at heather instead.
So the free guided walks run by more than 100 volunteers are to be scrapped
while the national park’s authority works out how the right sort of deprived
urban youngsters can be persuaded to come. Maybe they could open shops in
the fells where crisps and other fatty foods could be stolen. Just a
thought.
This, of course, is yet another example of Tony’s class war. He introduced the
right to roam, which allows Janet Street-Porter to come and jump up and down
in my flowerbeds whenever the mood takes her, and then his henchmen forced
through a bill that prevents people from using their dogs to chase foxes.
On top of this we have idiotic European legislation that means you can’t bleed
a veal calf to death on your kitchen table. Instead you must put it in a
lorry and drive it hundreds of miles to a licensed abattoir where it can
install its diseases in the food chain.
Meanwhile, deer are eating all the trees, reinvigorated sparrowhawks are
devouring all the songbirds and smallholdings are going out of business. In
short, the countryside is changing, and changing fast.
Who’s to blame for all this? Well, Tony obviously, and all his meddlesome
boyfriends in Whitehall. Then you have Neil Kinnock in Europe, and Bill
Oddie in his tree house. But most of all, I’m afraid, it’s me.
When I moved out of London eight years ago a typical farm shop sold mud and
bark, not vacherin cheese at £15 a pop, and geometrically perfect tomatoes.
And then there’s my local agricultural supply warehouse, which so far as I
can see no longer sells ploughs and other stuff for removing hands and arms,
but gas-powered barbecue sets and radio-controlled lawnmowers that follow
underground wires while you luxuriate in your split-level Jacuzzi.
This metamorphosis has happened because while I’m happy to embrace country
living I like it to be wrapped up in a duck-down duvet of urban comfort. I
want to be able to buy Thai spices in the market town and I want my local
electrical shop to sell 500 different types of low-voltage bulbs. Also, I
want my friends from town to have second homes in the area so that I can see
them more easily at weekends.
I even found myself asking the local farmer the other day if he could grow
linseed in the field that backs onto my garden because the colour goes well
with my pool house. How Islington is that? Yes, I have an Aga, but it’s
powered by gas, not coal. And I have stone floors, but they’re heated from
underneath so they’re not chilly on my tootsies of a morning. In every way,
then, I live in Notting Hill except that I don’t actually live in Notting
Hill.
Of course, this means I want to drive a country car. I want it to blend and be
a bit upright. I want it to look like the wagon in Constable’s Haywain but I
don’t want it to be made from rocks and straw. And this brings me neatly to
the Subaru Forester.
In the olden days the Forester was wilfully rural. When Subaru first came to
Britain the company had no dealer network so the cars were sold alongside
horse blankets and combine harvesters by farm supply companies.
The cars weren’t cars at all, really. They were mostly pick-up trucks with
corrugated-iron covers on the back and a breast-feeding pig in the passenger
seat. They smelt of manure and would run on anything that was liquid.
Petrol, diesel, vinegar, your fat wife’s cider brandy. Even a pint of pig
urine, if times were hard.
You never used to see a Subaru estate car of any sort with a Kensington and
Chelsea parking permit outside your local pub. It was a mud-brown mobile
billboard for the Countryside Alliance. Carpeted with blood and feathers, it
was the equivalent of a Le Chameau wellington, footwear for countryfolk who
knew how to make black pudding. If it could speak, it would tell you that it
had no clue what was meant by the word “metrosexual”, and then it would
invite you round for a game of Aunt Sally.
Now, though, the car is changing to suit the new face of rural Britain. The
new Forester has carpets and air-conditioning. The car I drove over
Christmas even had a huge electric sunshine roof and satellite navigation.
It was a sort of Fired Earth kitchen-flooring car. Seemingly countrified but
somehow not countrified at all.
Oh, it still looks rural because it’s boxy and plain and as practical as a
cowshed, and it still has four-wheel drive and a mildly raised driving
position. You couldn’t drive one over the Lake District, partly because it
has no locking diffs and no low-range gearbox, and partly because you’re
called Toby so you’re banned, but you could get one up the track to your
second home in Norfolk.
What’s more, it’s still phenomenally reliable. The Forester has always been
built like the countryside, and as a result it’s a virtually permanent
fixture in the top five of every customer satisfaction survey, anywhere in
the world. Apparently they never go wrong, ever.
In the not too distant past this was because there was nothing to go wrong.
You got four wheels, a seat and that was about it. But the new cars come
with an interior that could almost be classed as stylish. And a bag of
electronic trickery underneath to send power to whichever wheel needs it
most.
Think, then, of the new Forester as a paddock. It started out all rough and
practical but now it’s been mowed and rolled so that it's still a paddock.
But it’s as smooth and well manicured as a croquet lawn. If that’s a hard
concept, think of it as a barn conversion.
And now stop thinking of it as a croquet lawn or a barn conversion because
while you can still have a paraffin stove under the bonnet, the top model,
the £25,000 version I drove, has a new turbocharged, 2.5 litre flat four
that develops 208bhp. That equates to a top speed of 140mph and an ability
to get from 0-60mph in 6sec. This, then, is more like a Le Chameau training
shoe.
It really is an extraordinary car, because it looks like the sort of thing you
find lying around in a barn, it’s decked out in the sort of kit Poggenpohl
would be pleased to sell in Knightsbridge, and it goes like its little
brother, the Impreza Turbo.
Recently I suggested that no car does quite so much, quite so well as the new
Volkswagen Golf GTI. But after a couple of weeks with the Forester I’m
forced to think again. It’s built as well as the Golf, goes as well as the
Golf, it’s more practical than the Golf and isn’t going to be stopped should
we have a cold snap.
Of course, despite the limited slip differentials it isn’t as much fun to
drive as a Golf — it’s too tall for that — but even so it is the perfect
bridge between Chelsea and the more rugged bits of outlying Cheltenham. And
that makes it pretty much the perfect car for the townie who wants to blend
in with the green bits.
There is, in fact, only one thing that stops it from getting a rare and
exclusive five-star rating. For some extraordinary reason the car that does
everything won’t change gear on your behalf. It’s not available as an
automatic, and that means it’s a bit like a barn conversion with an outside
bog.
Vital statistics
Model Subaru Forester 2.5 XT
Engine type Four-cylinder 2457cc turbo
Power 208bhp @ 5600rpm
Torque 236 lb ft @ 3600rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual, four-wheel drive
Tyres 215/60 R16
Fuel 25.7mpg (combined)
CO2 261g/km
Acceleration 0-60mph: 6.0sec
Top speed 140mph
Price £24,950
Rating 4/5
Verdict The perfect country car for townies - even if you do
have to change gear yourself
