Hedgerow poetry puts our changing climate in focus

'm often struck by the way my limited knowledge of a few not very obscure poems enlightens my thinking. On Thursday, after weeks of roasting sunshine being capped off by showers, I noticed luscious blackberries are starting to appear on brambles in good sunlight.

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I'm of an age when "blackberrying", gathering fresh food for free, was not regarded as a macabre activity - replaced by industrially-produced food without reference to the season as it is air-freighted in from around the world.

So now, we took our grandchildren out to pass on the simple excitement, reassuring them that dogs do not pee four feet off the ground. And as a former teacher I wanted to promote their education during the holiday, so turned up a copy of Seamus Heaney's Blackberry Picking-many younger readers will know it from their GCSEs.