Waste not, want not was the maxim of the Maxwell Davies family as they
scrimped and saved in Salford during the Second World War.
So when Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen's Music, recently came across an electrocuted whooper swan near his Orcadian home, he did exactly what the neighbours do under such circumstances: he informed the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds about the sad demise of this beautiful creature and then he (and his cat) ate it.
We must rely on his assurance that the leg meat made "a delicious terrine", as the officers from the Northern Constabulary who executed a search warrant at the composer's island home under the 1981Wildlife and Countryside Act this week refused Sir Peter's invitation to sample it.
The story took wing yesterday, with Sir Peter quoting a Viking legal system known as Udal Law in his defence and playfully pulling rank by offering "to do porridge with a ball and chain in the Tower of London". This is a reference to the royal prerogative that still covers swans, which have held a unique position as royal birds since at least 1186. They provided tasty ceremonial dishes until superseded by turkey in the early twentieth century. Has the Master of the Queen's Music accidentally ruffled the feathers of the Keeper of the Queen's Swans?
It is a touching scenario, worthy of a comic opera, but sadly unsupported by
fact: the royal prerogative covers only England and Wales and includes only mute
swans. Udal Law is also irrelevant, and as Sir Peter neither killed nor sold the
swan, and properly informed the RSPB, he should be congratulated for his
parsimony rather than criminalised. In an age when even adults have developed an
arm's-length relationship with the food they eat, it is refreshing that Sir
Peter has the skill to turn a swan into a tasty meal. Even the most ardent
vegetarian could find little ethical objection to the actions of one who has
merely profited from nature's bounty.
