Country Life > Reviews (1)

Coffee tables throughout the British countryside are littered with a magazine that has been a bastion reporting on countryside matters for years - Country Life.

It’s thick and glossy with pages and pages at the front of property for sale, from whole sporting estates to chocolate-box cottages. Once past the property advertising and into the meat of the magazine, superb wildlife and nature pictures will catch your eye, as well as text from some of the columns and features:

…. wildflower meadows under threat…
…. government windfarm strategy is off course – sign the Country Life petition…
…. organic farmers unconfident for the future…
…. today, there are less than 40,000 craftsmen with the necessary specialist skills to maintain our historic environment…

What you quickly realise is that Country Life is not simply some rural glossy with pretty but staid articles filling in the space between the property and green wellie advertising. It has an openly political agenda.

~ COUNTRY LIFE AND THE COUNTRYSIDE MOVEMENT ~

Other countryside magazines promote the idyllic British countryside and wear blinkers to some of the real countryside issues and rural concerns.

I suspect that Country Life was a bit like this in the past. My personal acquaintance with Country Life started in the 1980s as a child. I grew up in a farmhouse and Country Life was always there, a new and shiny edition every week without fail. My own experience with the magazine consisted primarily of looking at the property pages. The gleaming photographs of the historic houses captured my imagination sufficiently that I began to dream that one day I would have a million pounds and be able to buy a Scottish baronial mansion or a medieval manor house, complete with dovecote and moat.

Occasionally an article inside the magazine would catch my eye - usually something to do with wildlife or equestrian activities. I skipped through the columns on antiques and gardens and finished my reading experience by browsing the classified advertisements at the back.

In the 1990s, I grew up, flew the nest, moved to the big smoke, and yet occasionally in the newsagents I found myself picking up Country Life and flicking through with nostalgic interest. Yet, nothing tempted me enough to think the magazine worth buying. Country Life, to me, became something linked to my rural childhood but of no relevance to my adult life.

Then my husband joined the Countryside Alliance. This is an organisation created to represent and campaign on all rural concerns and to be an umbrella organisation for what the media calls “the Countryside movement”. They organised the big marches in London. The Countryside Alliance publishes its own magazine but the political stance it takes on rural issues, I was interested to see now being reflected in the columns of Country Life.

Some articles credit The Countryside Alliance as the information source, and recently there was an interview with Simon Hart, the Countryside Alliance’s new CEO. It seems that Country Life is no longer an innocent glossy with pretty pictures…

~ COUNTRY LIFE – A POLITICAL ANIMAL ~

Country Life, then, which has been published since 1897, I had imagined to be as staid and enduring as a Barbour jacket.

However, now it waxes politically on a number of topics, and not just those of immediate rural interest.

Although articles are presented as “debates”, the political agendas are quite clear. From my own reading of articles in Country Life, I conclude that the magazine:

~ Does not agree that hunting with hounds should be banned and argues that that Scottish bill which banned hunting with hounds in Scotland has not worked and resulted in even more foxes being killed by “gun packs”.

~ Believes that gun crime is a result of illegal firearms and does not agree with government firearms policy interfering with people who want to use firearms for sporting purposes.

~ Thinks that large amounts of unspoilt countryside are under threat from the government’s policy on wind farms. Country Life is running a petition on this issue.

~ Supports organic farming and local produce and thinks that organic farmers should get a better deal from supermarkets and the government.

~ Supports wildlife conservation projects which it reports on such as the reintroduction of red kites in Northumbria, and highlights issues of concern where native species are under threat, such as the decline of British butterflies, and red squirrels.

~ Supports conservation of the built environment, reporting on historic houses such as Strawberry Hill, which are in need of restoration and arguing that English Heritage should not have an unaccountable monopoly on deciding the future of Britain’s built heritage.

~ COUNTRY LIFE – COFFEE TABLE STUFF ~

Despite reporting on these areas of political interest, Country Life tends to have a number of features in each issue which are not political and are of supposed general interest to country dwellers. I find some of the features quite contrived in this respect. The latest issue (August 12th 2004) has a report on the rise of country house pentanque (French boules) and a feature on vendura jewellery. The article on pentanque is something anyone with a decent sized lawn might be interested to read about, but trying to link jewellery to the countryside by saying it’s “perfect for glamorous country nights” is a bit thin, and detracts from an otherwise fair enough feature.

One column that’s been in Country Life since 1993 are the humorous Tottering-By-Gently cartoons which make me smile as they remind me of a Miss Marple view of rural England whereby all ladies still wear headscarves and live off gin and tonics. These are by Annie Tempest who used to draw the strip cartoon “The Yuppies” in the Daily Mail. She has her own website - tottering.com.

~ COUNTRY LIFE – READERS ~

So who actually reads Country Life? If you are ever interested to see what a magazine’s readership is socio-demographically, most magazines have media packs, aimed at advertisers, but generally available on request. Country Life’s readers are affluent and upmarket and the advertising, aimed at them, reflects this - from the property pages through art & antiques and to classified columns full of upmarket home improvement opportunities.

The lady of the manor reads Country Life.

Middle class families who ditch the suburbs for a more rural existence in “The Old Rectory” buy Country Life and leave it lying around as evidence that they support the country way of life.

And second-homers buy it and with it dream about the day they’ll up sticks and move to the country wholesale, despite being attacked now again in Country Life’s columns for destroying village communities by buying up cottages as holiday homes.

~ COUNTRY LIFE – WEBSITE ~

It is worth stepping aside briefly to note that Country Life has a good website – countrylife.co.uk – which was established in 1999.

I found it easy to navigate and that it contains a good selection of material from the magazine, available free without any need to subscribe or sign in. There is a forum, which reflects the political agenda of the magazine. For example:

~ “is our heritage being hijacked?”
~ “hidden agendas of windfarms”

The website would certainly be of great interest to readers of the magazine.

~ THE BOTTOM LINE ~

Country Life has a cover price of £2.95, although you can save with various subscription offers. One month free trial is currently being offered on countrylife.co.uk or 29% off a six month subscription.

~ COUNTRY LIFE – CONCLUSIONS ~

If you are interested in the British countryside and have some sympathy with current rural issues such as the ones I have outlined above, then Country Life provides an intriguing and strangely eclectic mix of politicised articles and fluffy features with great photography and interesting advertising.

But it’s a magazine with an open and vigorously pursued agenda and therefore will not appeal to everyone.