A Beautiful Day to Stop and Count the Roses By T.R. Reid Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, May 13, 2002; Page A12 BATTLE, England Glorious sunshine washed over southeastern England. A soft spring breeze rustled the lilacs and wafted swarms of birds and butterflies above the meandering hedgerows. A perfect day, in short, for the anoraks. In British slang, an anorak is not an item of clothing but a type of person. It's a mocking term for people who like to go outside with clipboards and count things. The anorak family includes planespotters, trainspotters, twitchers, ramblers, bog-trotters, Munro-baggers, fell-walkers, reenacters, historians and countless others. Britain, which has always cherished eccentrics, is home to millions of anoraks -- or "enthusiasts," as they prefer to be known. "On a bright weekend, there will be half a million rail enthusiasts out there," estimated Murray Brown, editor of Rail Express magazine, the rail fans' bible. "There could be another 100,000 bus watchers, and of course the aviation enthusiasts. You'll have a million ramblers, plus the twitchers, [bird watchers], the butterfly people and the flower enthusiasts. Oh, the numbers get very high." It all sounds terribly British, and totally harmless. But suddenly, a group of enthusiasts has sparked a diplomatic crisis and brought angry charges of international espionage. A dozen British planespotters were arrested and locked up in a high-security prison in November as they stood outside a Greek air force base near Kalamata with binoculars and clipboards. Greek military police officers, searching the spotters' backpacks, found diaries listing plane types and tail numbers and a radio scanner for picking up pilot-to-tower communications. "What they found," explained Paul Coppin, the travel agent and planespotter who organized the trip, "was nothing but the basic tools of the hobby." To the Greeks, it looked suspiciously like spying. Despite an appeal from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Greek government put the Britons on trial -- even Coppin's wife, Leslie, who was in a van doing crossword puzzles while the others were out observing the air show. "I have gone spotting all over the world, including virtually every Air Force base in the U.S.," Coppin said. "Your U.S. military, they accept it as a hobby -- I mean, some people collect tropical fish, some write down the tail numbers of jets. But the Greeks arrested me at gunpoint." Last month, a court in Kalamata convicted the Britons, and two Dutch plane watchers who were with them, on espionage charges. They were sentenced to jail terms ranging from one to three years but permitted to leave Greece pending appeal, so they will probably not serve any more time in prison. Blair's office responded with a statement complaining that the Greek "response to this case has been disproportionate." London's xenophobic tabloid press demanded that Britain pull out of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The Daily Mail published a list of Greek products (yogurt, feta cheese, ouzo and, of course, Kalamata olives) for British consumers to boycott. But a little thing like a felony conviction for spying is not nearly enough to dissuade true British enthusiasts from pursuing their hobbies, particularly this spring, one of the driest and sunniest Britain has seen in years. "If anything, I'd say our ordeal has increased interest in outdoor hobbies," Paul Coppin said. That certainly seemed to be true on a sunny Saturday here in Battle. This hilltop town just inland from the English Channel was the site of the epoch confrontation in 1066 that is known, inaccurately, as the Battle of Hastings (Hastings is five miles to the south). On the historic battleground, several hundred military enthusiasts in ancient regalia gathered for a reenactment. Scores of history buffs on the sidelines checked off familiar flags and uniforms on their clipboards. Meanwhile, a contingent of binocular-bearing twitchers from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, an organization with more than a million active members, was also in town. Then, toward the end of the day, Battle was invaded by representatives of Britain's biggest class of enthusiasts, the ramblers -- the countryside hikers who are famous for their muddy boots and the clear plastic cases they carry to protect their topographic maps from the rain. According to the Ramblers' Association, country walking is Britain's most popular weekend activity. It has such strong support that private landowners are required by law to maintain stiles, or wooden steps, over fences to make it easy for hikers to transit their land. Even Chequers, the prime minister's sprawling country estate, must permit ramblers their right of way. "The state, with all its power, has not been able to divert the public footpath from the land, where the [prime minister] is at the mercy of any sniper," noted Nicholas Albery, an author of popular walking guides. Britain's millions of ramblers divide into numerous subsets. Bog-trotters specialize in swampy fens; fell-walkers climb the steep hills, or fells, of the northwestern Lake District. A determined set make it their goal to climb every one of the Munros, the Scottish peaks higher than 3,000 feet. Regardless of their particular enthusiasm, most British enthusiasts tend to stick up for each other. Accordingly, the hobby community here has strongly backed the planespotters convicted in Greece. "They're mad, but they're not dangerous to anybody," said Sue Chinn of London, who rambled over the hills into Battle. The enthusiasts all seem to agree on another point: They hate the term "anoraks." "If you spend the weekend hitting white balls into holes, that's socially acceptable," said Brown, the editor and rail enthusiast. "But if you photograph steam locomotives or count blue butterflies, than you're just an 'anorak.' We get so cheesed off at people who denigrate us all the time." Attend the Newark Airport Airline Collectible Show & Sale: http://www.freeyellow.com/members/psa188/page1.html