Handsome is as handsome does. Our old Volvo estate recently received a sideswipe from a white van and, after 178,000 loyal miles, the insurers decided to write it off. I was outraged. It may not be the most fuel efficient car, but, if we're trying to save the planet, scrapping a vehicle because it's got a couple of flesh wounds to its back bumper and side panel seems to be a hideous waste of resources. The energy involved in digging the iron out of the ground and making a new car will far exceed the benefit of stopping the old warrior bashing on for another 30,000 miles.
* For more features like this every week subscribe and save
The other side of the story is safety. I want my sons to drive around in a tank after they take their driving tests- the Volvo had their names on it. So the insurers were amazed, when, ignoring the Government's £2,000 scrappage deal to help us buy a new car, we decided to buy the bruised old Volvo back from them and have her patched up. And, £200 worth of repairs later, the old girl is back in the drive, costing me nothing and having saved a tiny bit of the planet.
-
The garden created by a forgotten genius of the 1920s, rescued from 'a sorry state of neglect to a level of quality it has not known for over 50 years'George Dillistone’s original Arts-and-Crafts design at Knowle House, East Sussex, has been lovingly restored and updated with contemporary planting. George Plumptre tells more; photography by Clive Nichols.
-
21 of the greatest craftspeople working in Britain today, as chosen by the nation's best designers and architectsWe've persuaded some of the most celebrated names from our Country Life Top 100 to name the craftspeople they have in their own personal little black books.
