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Mind you, you won’t hear the truth from much of the UK media either! Sadly, many journalists lazily recycle whatever the protesters tell them without once bothering to fact-check any of it – which is why this fairy story about a supposed connection between Dahl and Jones’ hill woods has managed to spread.
Who to trust? Was Jones’ Hill woods really the inspiration for Roald Dahl to write ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’?
Well, how about the Roald Dahl museum? If anyone should know about this they should, surely? This is what they say about the inspiration for Dahl’s story on their website.
“Roald Dahl lived with his family in Great Missenden, a village in Buckinghamshire, UK. Their house was surrounded by fields and woods. As a passionate lover of the countryside, there was one particular tree – known locally as “the witches tree” – that sat on the lane near the Dahl home and came to inspire one of Roald’s own favourite stories: Fantastic Mr Fox.
The “witches tree” was a large, 150-year-old beech. Sadly the tree is no longer standing but when his children were growing up Roald always used to tell them that it was where Mr Fox and his family lived, in a hole beneath the trunk, just as the Fox family do in the story.”
So, not only was it NOT Jones’ hill woods – it wasn’t even a woods but a single tree that no longer exists and hasn’t for donkey’s years (hardly surprising as Beech trees have a typical lifespan of 150–200 years). Yet again we find those opposed to HS2 just making stuff up for their own ends (just like the ‘children’s memorial’ and dozens of other ridiculous claims).
The story gets detailed even more in this report called “Finding Fantastic Mr Fox” by the BBC’s ‘Countryfile’ which claims that:
“Beloved children’s author Roald Dahl once lived and worked in rambling Gipsy House, on the edge of the sleepy Chilterns village of Great Missenden, and when stumped for inspiration he would walk in nearby Angling Spring and Hobshill woods. It was among these ancient beeches and carpets of bluebells that Dahl set some of his best-loved stories, including my favourite, the tale of Fantastic Mr Fox. Dahl had a favourite tree, an enormous gnarled specimen in the heart of the wood, which he called The Witches’ Tree“.
Note no mention of Jones’ Hill woods, even if this report slightly contradicts the Roald Dahl museum.
And there’s more! In 2016 the Independent newspaper carried a story called ‘on the trail of Roald Dahl in Great Missenden‘. In this piece it claims that;
“Angling Spring wood was the inspiration behind one of the writer’s most charismatic characters, Fantastic Mr Fox. The gnarled Witches Tree is said to be where the four-legged family lived.”
Yet again, no mention of Jones’ Hill woods. But there’s more..
The Bucks geology website has an illustrated guide to walks around Great Missenden published by the Chiltern’s Conservation Board (who also might be expected to know the truth) which contains this informative piece.
If I can fact-check this claim by spending just a few minutes on Google, why can’t the BBC or any other journo’s do the same? Because it’s just too easy to swallow whatever the protesters tell them as it makes a nice tear-jerking story and to hell with whatever the truth is! As the old adage goes, never let the facts get in the way of a good story…
Not letting the truth get in the way is exactly what HS2Rebellion and the protesters have done. Yesterday HS2rebellion reposted serially failed Green Party candidate Mark Keir claiming to be pointing out the actual ‘Mr Fox’ tree being felled in Jones’ Hill wood on their laughably entitled and thoroughly dishonest “Save Roald Dahl wood” Facebook page!
How you chop down a tree that fell down in a completely different wood in 2003 is a mystery known only the anti HS2 protesters.
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I noticed some on Twitter were questioning this when they first set up their camp there.
Every time a journalist says “woods said to be the inspiration for Roald Dahl” they fail to realise the people doing that saying are only those protesting HS2.
I suspect they were that desperate to elevate JHW to some sort of mythic status they just made something up. It was the same with Dews farm becoming “Queen Elizabeth’s farm”, the original farm which Elizabeth I visited of course, was been knocked down centuries ago.
They have finally rejigged their “case” to target Natural England on Monday it seems. I can’t see the injunction being granted even if the case proceeds against NE.
Why are you even in The Bucks Herald, HS2 Enough is enough campaign group on Facebook if all you are going to do is write utter crap and drivel about the protestors. It is very obvious you are pro HS2, so you are in the wrong group!
The truth is not ‘utter crap’. I have provided links to independent expert evidence that proves the protesters have made up the supposed ‘links’ between Roald Dahl and Jones’ Hill woods. I have provided the evidence that proves the wood has nothing to do with ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. That is not ‘crap and drivel’, those are facts – something that’s clearly in short supply from the opponents of HS2.
I know it’s a good bit of sport poking fun and mocking all the different anti-HS2 protestors and you plainly quite enjoy it and some undoubtedly deserve it. However, as you also always say they are irrelevant as it’s going to get built whether Joe Rukin goes to court again or a bunch a crusties dig themselves into a hole. It’s such a shame you don’t use your time plus your considerable research and jounalistic skills to hold HS2 to account. Most days I have some interaction or other with someone connected to HS2, from reasonably senior people to security guards minding compounds and WITHOUT exception they all comment on how badly organised and wasteful of public money it is. You can agree with the concept of HS2 without approving of how HS2 are actually getting it done.
Why doesn’t the Anti HS2 mob hold HS2 to account with actual facts instead of making up stuff like this which is easily dismissed as false and fake news?
Simply because they don’t have any such facts on anything lime the scale required to impact HS2 itself. Any real and genuine issues are actually on a very small scale.
To Adam, surely everyone possible should be holding them to account if they’re spending taxpayers money!
To Phil – Are the real and genuine issues actually on a very small scale??, that’s quite a statement, I’m curious to the level of your dealings with HS2?
James. Yes I’d say so. For the individual impacted it’s undoubtedly a big issue, but bearing in mind the scale of HS2 I’d say the issues are indeed on a very small scale on the bigger stage. The very fact the Stop HS2 narrative has to either make stuff up as we see with the Jones Hill Wood thing or massively exaggerate stuff as we also see tells a story all it’s own.
Try taking a look at the line where Anti HS2 sentiment isn’t rife like it is in the Chilterns or around Kenilworth. Property payments have been made on time, ecology and archaeology surveys done well in advance, felling completed within correct timescales.
You could argue it’s because they “aren’t being held to account”. But I’d suggest where security isn’t needed they can’t get in the way and where property owners aren’t encouraged to delay paperwork, things are what they should be, actually.
If everything is so wonderful why do so many people complain about dealing with HS2 then?, everyone is just a whingeing nimby on the make (including me) I suppose??, many of you pro’s are in total denial with what it’s like dealing with them and probably know very little what it’s like. I think anti-HS2 sentiment is pretty rife all along the line for people who have to deal with them, in-coming protesters make a lot of noise but if you live with it all the time you just have to make the best of it and get on. From personal experience they most certainly don’t make payments on time, there’s no point delaying paperwork as their procedures are so long-winded that it takes forever anyway!