Regular 10,000 Birds readers will a) wonder why I’ve not been posting so much lately, b) be celebrating that I’ve not been wittering on so much lately, or c) not have noticed either way (which I think is the most likely).

Well, in fact I have been writing a fair bit, but with another hat on, so to speak. I recently accepted an offer to edit the Great Bustard Group’s in-house magazine ‘Otis’, and had just six weeks to prepare the first issue. Most of the work is done now and I thought I’d post one of the shorter articles here as the respective audiences hardly (if at all) overlap and I think it tells an inspiring story no matter who reads it (a graphic designer will be working wonders with some other images, by the way, but she’s not quite finished yet so I’m going to make do here with an image of the flag only). It tells the story of Mike Prior who designed a stunning new flag for Wiltshire, which happily has a Great Bustard as its centre-piece…

Mike Prior: Vexillologist

Otis editor Charlie Moores meets the man who is responsible for more Great Bustards flying over Wiltshire than even GBG Director David Waters…

 

Vexillologist. No? I admit I had to look it up too, but it describes someone who studies flags. The word is apparently a synthesis of the Latin word vexillum and the suffix -logy, meaning “study of”, but it could just as accurately describe the vexing process that Mike Prior, a Wiltshire printer by trade, had to go through to get a new Wiltshire flag from the design-board to the flagpole.

The story starts back in Christmas 2005 when Mike and his wife were on a winter break in Devon and admired County Flags flying in gardens, commercial properties, and on flagpoles on the seafront. A proud Wiltshireman, Mike decided that he’d like to fly a Wiltshire flag in his own garden when he got back home, but discovered that apart from a rather complex design that periodically flew over County Hall, there was no official Wiltshire flag for him to fly.

While most of us would have shrugged and left it that, Mike, a keen vexillologist, decided instead to make one himself. With his graphic-designer daughter, Helen, and working to the ‘golden ratio’ principles of Fibonacci and adherence to The Flag Institute’s five ‘desirable qualities for good flag design’, Mike set about creating a county flag that for him represented Wiltshire.

 

 

The design Mike and Helen came up with was stunning and distinctive. Using green and white bars to represent the green of Wiltshire’s rolling downs and their chalk underlay, Mike and Helen placed a roundel of six rocks (which in heraldic symbolism expresses “safety, refuge and protection”) in the centre of their new flag. They then overlaid the roundel with the silhouette of a male Great Bustard (drawn from illustrations provided by the GBG), its head deliberately slightly offset into the upper left quadrant so that it would remain relatively still and the bird appear positively regal while the flag was flying.

Why a Great Bustard rather than, say, a white horse? As Mike says, and I’m not going to disagree with him, the Great Bustard has symbolised Wiltshire for many years, a bustard was already in use on the County Council flag, and though Wiltshire has white horses etched into its hills so do other counties (the County flag of Kent, for example, has been in use for many years and shows a white horse on a red background).

Mike’s new flag was only ever intended to be for his personal use, but on trying to run it up the flagpole behind his home he found himself tangled up in red tape instead. In 2006 flying a County Flag was construed as advertising - even if there were no words, slogans, or advertising material on it. Remarkably Mike needed planning permission from the then West Wilts District Council to fly his own flag in his own garden!

Again, less determined individuals might have shaken their heads in disbelief and given up, but in June 2006 Mike submitted a Planning Application and put up Planning Notices in every street adjoining his home.

At this point Fate stepped in to lend a hand when a reporter on the Wiltshire Times (whose Trowbridge offices are directly opposite Mike’s print business) saw the planning application by chance and decided this was a story worth telling.

With the local press campaigning for the flag and local residents beginning to show an interest the planning application was soon granted. In late September 2006 Mike stood in his garden and proudly raised his new flag in a ceremony attended by the Marquis of Bath (who flies a 10 foot long version of Mike’s Wiltshire flag over Longleat), Trowbridge Mayor Tom James, and a host of well-wishers.

The Great Bustard was once again flying over Trowbridge (which is possibly a flight of fancy on my part, but hopefully GBG members will grant me a little poetic licence)!

From then on things went smoothly? Not quite.

In April 2007, following a campaign by Mike and members of the Flag Institute, the Government finally changed the rules concerning County Flags allowing anyone to fly one without permission, and in May the same year Wiltshire County Council sent out a press-release saying that the new official Wiltshire County Flag would be raised outside County Hall for the first time. The public in general took to the new design and – unexpectedly as far as Mike was concerned – orders started rolling in. The flag began appearing all over the County.

Two years later, at the end of May 2009, Mike released the flag into the public domain and, as he explained to me today, virtually wrote off his development costs. The release coincided both with the momentous birth of our three Great Bustard chicks and with the two-year anniversary of the first raising of the flag outside County Hall in Trowbridge.

With the flag accepted by the Council and the public, the Great Bustard Group in the news, and articles appearing in magazines across the UK, that should have been that. However, in late 2009 council members of Wiltshire’s recently formed Unitary Council received an objection about the flag’s design. Legally, the objector argued, because the flag was approved by a now disbanded Council a vote to accept the design as the County Flag must be taken again.

Just one vote against could have brought Mike’s flag crashing down from flagpoles across the county. He prepared himself for yet another fight, sent a summary of the flag’s history to all 98 councillors, and on December 1st - almost exactly four years after the trip to Devon that sparked the whole process – found himself in the uncomfortable position of giving a speech to the County Council Main Meeting in County Hall.

And his opponent? Well, he didn’t turn up, all 98 councillors approved the design once again, and that – this time – really should be that!

Mike Prior doesn’t actually seem the hero-type in real-life. He’s amiable, quietly-spoken, and very likeable. But there’s evidently steel lying beneath his cardigan. Would, I ask him, go through it all again. Of course he replies, and as a final thought he adds, “I use the slogan ‘Raising the profile of the County’ on my publications about the flag, but maybe in the future I’ll change that to ‘Raising the profile of the Great Bustard’ “.

Steely and he has a way with words. No wonder his flag, and our Great Bustard, is now flying over so many rooftops.

 

For more information please visit wiltshireflag.co.uk, or contact Mike Prior on 01225 777767 or 07860 265555