If their origin can be traced to a few pieces by David Hockney, they also represented a whole continent of memory and imagination that Boyd Harte discovered for himself and shared with his many friends in an extraordinary and rich life.Glynn Boyd Harte was born in Rochdale in 1948. His father was a commercial artist and art teacher, and his grandfather a lithographic printer. Glynn Boyd Harte’s song “Far Horizons” was selected by the painter Paul Hogarth for his Desert Island Discs, and played at his memorial service. Glynn Boyd Harte, painter, illustrator and musician: born Rochdale, Lancashire 1948; married 1972 Caroline Bullock (two sons); died London 16 December 2003.
Glynn Boyd Harte’s song “Far Horizons” was selected by the painter Paul Hogarth for his Desert Island Discs, and played at his memorial service. His succession of amendments to every conceivable Bill which might have relevance to hedges, culminating in his own Private Members’s Bill, gave hedges the protection that we now see they deserve.Hedgerows, many of them ancient, going back to Saxon times, owe their continued existence, and that of the wildlife that depends on them, to Peter Hardy.Tam Dalyell. A patchwork of fields and hedges symbolises for many people what the British countryside is about.

Until 20 years ago, it was still possible to get a grant for grubbing up medieval hedges – but for Hardy’s determination it might still be possible to remove them without the chance of protection. He would remind members of the Parliamentary Labour Party that they had an obligation to take very seriously the interests of servicemen, whatever their views might be on matters of peace and war, nuclear disarmament or general defence policy. He was a most active member of the UK Defence Forum, which sponsors many useful lectures and working dinners for MPs and members of the House of Lords.Hardy spent his life campaigning to improve hedgerow protection, and for me, his monument will be the many hedgerows that one still sees around Britain. He became very active in matters of defence, an interest which sprang from his service with the RAF, in 1949-51, and his reserves service. Unlike some other ex-MPs, he was really the most effective kind of working peer, sponsoring in 1998 the Waste Minimisation Bill. This gave Hardy a taste for foreign affairs and he became a member of the delegation to the Council of Europe and Western European Union, becoming the leader of the Labour delegation, 1983-96, and vice-chairman of the socialist group of the Council of Europe, 1983-96.

He was the chairman of the Environmental Committee, 1986-90, and did much valuable work on matters such as the shooting of songbirds during the migrations from North Africa to spend their summers in Britain or the Arctic.Leaving the Commons of his own volition in 1997, Hardy was created a life peer. He sold the idea to the council on the basis that it would be a green lung. The result is that waterfowl, teals, widgeon, redshank and a myriad other creatures are welcome and protected in industrial South Yorkshire.Caroline Kisko, Secretary of the Kennel Club, remembers Hardy as a “great supporter”: He kept greyhounds and Norfolk terriers. He had considerable expertise and was greatly helpful in many policy problems concerning dogs, such as the docking of tails.Hardy also used his position from 1974 to 1976 as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Tony Crosland, to good purpose. When Crosland became James Callaghan’s Foreign Secretary, Hardy went with him and, after Crosland’s tragic death, continued to be PPS, to David Owen as Foreign Secretary, 1977-79. Stuart Housden, speaking on behalf of the RSPB, says: Lord Hardy was extremely helpful for 30 years to the RSPB, on whose council he served, in strategic and conservation issues. He also helped in practical projects such as the protection of Old Moor, a flood plain in South Yorkshire in the middle of a heavily industrialised area.