John Craven reports back from his travels

It's always been the knack of the best adult presenters on children's television not to talk down to their young audience. John Craven managed it for more than 3,000 episodes of Newsround, the world's first junior TV news bulletin, where his persona was that of a favourite teacher.

His genial, straight-down-the-middle approach – "being unbiased has always been my kind of discipline," he says – later turned out to be absolutely perfect for the BBC's flagship rural affairs show, Countryfile, which he has presented since its launch in 1989. It's hard to imagine who else could explain the pros and cons of badger culls, for instance, without upsetting a single viewer.

"In Newsround we had to be so careful not to take sides on any issue because we had the responsibility to inform millions of developing minds. I remember the Canadian seal cull used to cause an outcry, but we had to explain to our young viewers that, actually, the Inuits needed the seal meat to survive, and the skins to sell."

Having adopted the same non-partisan and unemotional policy while picking his way across the minefield that has been the British countryside for the last two decades, it was perhaps inevitable he would do the same when he came to write a book on rural matters.

It's not a campaigning guidebook for "Outraged of Ilkley" or anyone else. Although he tackles every contentious subject under the sun, from fox hunting to the planting of conifers and building of wind farms, and includes a useful section on which action groups to join should you feel your hackles rising, you can almost hear his softly rounded Yorkshire voice when he writes that it's important to look at both sides of an argument.

"Countryfile has never been a campaigning programme," he says during a break in filming the series. "It lets people make grown-up decision for themselves. And it's interesting how rural matters have climbed higher and higher up the national agenda in the last 20 years. We don't want the countryside to come to any harm, whether we live there or in towns or cities. It rouses people's passions, and passion is a very important element in protecting the countryside. I think it's very significant that there are now more members of conservation groups than there are of political parties."

Craven says he wanted to write a book that people would find useful, rather than simply knock out an autobiography to mark his 70th birthday, which he celebrated this summer. Much of it is information he amassed while travelling to every corner of Britain for the TV series and had kept filed away in notebooks.

"I haven't got a terribly good retentive memory and so I drew up my own reference guide. The book began to develop from that, really, as a place where people could go to find the answers to a wide range of questions they might have about the countryside."

The most noticeable feature of the book is its large number of lists. For instance, Craven tells you "the top 20 wildlife sightings on Britain's canals", "ten things you didn't know about thatched roofs" and "six reasons why Britain loves dry stone walls".

"I love lists," he says. "I love stuff like collective nouns for birds and the different gender names of various creatures in the countryside, so I've included as many lists as I can. There's even a list of measures to take to avoid being struck by lightning. Things like turning off your mobile and putting down your umbrella, which can act as a lightning conductor."

There's plenty of folksy stuff, like old wives' tales about poisonous mushrooms, and how to make tea and soup from nettles. But there's also much to think about in his chapters on the future of the countryside. In the two decades he's been presenting Countryfile, he says, thousands of farms have disappeared every year. There were about 150,000 farmers in Britain when he was born in 1940, but today almost two-thirds have vanished.

"One of the key issues is who is going to be doing the farming in the future? Farmers are getting on. The age of the average farmer is about 60 now, and over the years I've been round hundreds of farms and always asked farmers if their children are going to be taking over. All too often the answer is, no, they're not interested.

"So we need to worry about how we're going to produce food in the future. Because at the moment we produce about 40 per cent of the food we eat, and another 20 per cent or so comes from within the EU and the rest is imported. As overseas countries undergo population growth, they may need the food for themselves, and we in Britain will have to think about producing far more home-grown food."

Craven talks about how change has come to the countryside since his childhood in Leeds. He grew up in suburban Headingley and West Park,

and from his early teens he and schoolfriends cycled to camp on Otley Chevin. The view across Wharfedale to Almscliffe Crag, he says, is still one of his favourites, even after seeing every corner of the British Isles as Countryfile presenter.

"I remember going up into the Dales on Sunday School trips from Leeds, and there were all these fields of flowers. Farmers used to cut the grass quite late and have haystacks to feed the animals in winter. Then along came the silage technique, which used fertiliser and killed off the wildflowers. Instead of all those glorious sheets of colours in Dales meadows, we just got this constant green everywhere.

"But now I'm so pleased to see the haymeadows and flowers are coming back again. There's a great revival going on in the Dales, with farmers returning to traditional methods."

Another change he highlights is the erosion of rural services, with village shops and pubs closing down as more people shop in towns and cities and drink at home. "If you live in the countryside and want to maintain your local amenities, you really have to use them and persuade others to do so," he says.

Sometimes villagers have to take action if they want something preserved, he adds, citing the example of Gunnerside in Swaledale, where the King's Head pub was on the verge of closure until locals rallied round to help it back into business.

Craven dedicates the book to his four grandchildren, aged between 15 and a few months, "in the hope that our countryside will not change too much".

However, his chapter on climate change suggests that might be an optimistic hope, although in typical Craven fashion he presents the naysayers' arguments so that the effects won't be too dramatic.

But for once he expresses his own opinion. "Personally, I do believe that climate change is happening," he

writes, "and, yes, that will mean more periods of drought and of heavy

sudden rainfall."

Like the upbeat Newsround presenter of old, not wishing to scare the children, he adds: "There's a lot to be gained as well. In future there will be new kinds of crops, and new ways of using the countryside."

John Craven's Countryfile Handbook is published by BBC Books, 12.99. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go online at www.yorkshirepost bookshop.co.uk. Postage and packing is 2.75.

YP MAG 30/10/10