the future of our countryside
I’m writing another post on this subject spurred on by your comments. Perhaps too I did not make it clear where I was coming from. I’m waiting on the CPRE to find out if they can put Robert Elms’ article on line: if they can there’ll be a link.
The perception of the countryside, and the values we attach to it, vary as much as we do. Even if we’re broadly in agreement, the detail leads to plenty of healthy discussion! None of us holds quite the same views about the Enclosures, wind farms, badgers, hunting, subsidies, green belts, organic farming, gmos…
Just a tiny scrap of the British Isles is left untouched by human hand. We haven’t scarcely an iota of true wilderness left. Ours is a cultural landscape, a record of our history and social evolution. A palimpsest – love that word. And it will continue to change. In the next few decades I believe it will undergo as rapid a transformation as anytime before, apart from perhaps the clearance of the wildwood, through the demands of population growth, climate change, food security and energy generation, but that’s no excuse for not sharing our views on what the future of our landscape should be, so that collectively we can exert some shaping influence.
I’m not a naturally untidy or lazy farmer. Far from it, I’m cursed by obsessive industry. It’s all too easy for me to look at a beautiful farm and see only work to be done. I have farmed various types of land for over three decades and my ideals, passions and expectations have changed dramatically over the years. But I’ve never held sway with intensive agriculture and have always tried to the best of my ability to farm in harmony with the land. When farmer met environmentalist (Robert- husband) there was a meeting of minds on some aspects, but headlong clashes over others. I began to look at certain practices with different eyes, just as Robert began to better understand the needs of a farmer, his stock and crops. Fortunately for us, Locks Park could never be intensively farmed (come Armageddon I will have the greatest of difficulty to even grow a handful of cereal to feed the family) so compromise has not been too difficult.
Reading Robert Elms’ article I was struck not by his dismissal of the countryside (I couldn’t care a toss if he doesn’t want to live in it) but more by his observation of the boring sameness of it all. You see I agree. To me a lot of our countryside has become over manicured, bland and uninteresting. With mono-culture, horsiculture and diesel and unimaginative planning laws we are losing character and individuality.
Affluence is part of the problem. We no longer have to mend and make do. We have the cash to throw on the fertilisers, on all-powerful machines, on high tensile wire and smart new gates. You can tell so much about a place by looking at a single old wooden gate, repaired and patched over many years, lichen-smattered, so little from a brand new one.
Then there’s the legacy the Victorians left us, that cleanliness (neatness) is next to godliness. The inordinate desire the stamp our mark on every last square foot, to create order out of Nature’s chaos. Have you any idea how difficult it is to cut a field in wavy lines, so deeply ingrained is the need for everything to be straight and true? Many say that the sign of a good farmer is how neat his land is, but in my view we have to learn to think differently.
And that goes for environmentalists as well as farmers. How many times have I seen the soul of a beautiful place tamed and dulled by the well-meaning but misplaced views of some conservation organisation or another? The sort who believe that tacking an inconspicuous line of fencing wire to an oak tree or two is a sin, requiring instead a line of standard-spec yellow-green fencing to cut across the landscape like a slash across a Constable.
Am I the only one willing to speak up for the rusty tin roof, the abandoned harrow in the hedge, even the ruts in the lane?
8 comments
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April 8, 2008 at 8:20 am
Jane
The answer is “no”. You aren’t the only one. I agree wholeheartedly with your feelings. Luckily a lot of the farmers around me still “patch up and make do” instead of sticking in a new fence or gate and loosing the character of the land.
While reading your post I was reminded of a book that I have just read by Robert Macfarlane called The Wild Places. In it he sets out to try and find a truly wild place in England. As the book progresses his perception of “wild” changes. Instead of only thinking of the remote Scottish islands or highest Welsh mountains, he starts to realise that “wild places” can be all around us. Inside a big ancient hedge - 20ft across and full of noises and animal paths, the “holloways”, ancient deep tracks through the countryside of Dorset, Devon and beyond. Untouched for years, with there own special atmosphere.
Much of the countryside has been “tamed” as you say, but every now and then you find a special place that still has that “magic”. That wildness that we all crave. If only there could be more.
April 8, 2008 at 9:48 am
Liz Jamieson
I found this link to an old Robert Elms article, http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2001/apr/28/weekend7.weekend2 and another to a video of him on a completely unrelated subject. I really like him!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/video/2007/sep/20/robert.elms
And this article when read as a whole contains many truths. The cities we know are diverse - it is always being said. The countryside could benefit, as could all its inhabitants, present and future, with the diversity of thought and practice that his article suggests is missing.
It is clear that Robert Elms does not want to live in the countryside. In the article I refer to, he says he tried it, but found it untenable. In many ways I do too - but I refuse to be told implicitly or explicitly that I don’t belong in any place I choose. I refuse to give in to the messages subliminally, etched here and there, the ones that say ‘go home’. You see, I could care a toss that Robert Elms doesn’t want to live in the countryside. I care deeply that he (and many others), have felt this way. I understand what drove him to say that and to put it in print is IMHO, courageous.
He also makes it clear that he supports farmers who treat animals with respect and love and gives some anecdotal evidence for others in the cities feeling the same way.
I am not willing to speak up for the rusty tin roof. I don’t need to because they abound. There are enough people who admire them or don’t prioritise them, or don’t have enough spare money to change them that I am convinced they as a species will survive.
April 8, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Mopsa
Bloomin’ brilliant blogging Paula – this has made us really think. And I apologise for the lengthy stream of disconnected consciousness that follows!
True wilderness – yes, of course we must keep it wild before it’s too late and we lose it forever. Being truly wild means that people should not be encouraged (or indeed be actively discouraged) from even visiting a place, let alone leaving their imprint.
By definition, though, farms aren’t wild places; I’d like to think, like you, that there is a welcome place for wildness on all farms – copses, corners, banks, difficult to reach bits that are kept difficult to reach, unimproved meadows, river banks, woodland, rough patches, squashy bits, you name it.
Of course, every fence was new once upon a time, so the harder than iron oak post with draped wire would have been taut and upright and probably quite shiny, once. Sadly, affording lovely old cleft oak posts is something few can afford when it comes to replacement. I’ve always yearned for the cleft oak fences around the National Trust’s Charlecote Park, but only the Trust (and barely they) can continue that beautiful tradition. I agree completely that tanalised timber has absolutely no romance about it, but in time it stops slashing the landscape and does weather to a more acceptable grey, with hedges spilling through them. And of course it does keep some areas wilder, ensuring they aren’t trampled indiscriminately by livestock and humans. I know this isn’t all about fencing, but when I see the damage that the livestock do to ancient banks if they are not maintained, and in many cases fenced, I want to weep.
I have no connection at all with intensive farming – it‘s manufacturing and not something I have any sympathy for, notwithstanding the fools that shout that we must have £1.99 chickens. We need to learn the lessons of the past – no grubbing up of hedges, stop improving pasture (I hate it that it’s called improved when in fact it’s the very opposite), leave the sprays alone etc.
If I was farming in the Yorkshire Dales I would want to keep my beautiful dry stone walls in good nick, and preserve the beauty of the past with new walls. As I’m here, I want to preserve Devon hedgebanks (and sadly have yet to discover how this can be done effectively without the addition of fencing – wish I could – the sheep can climb a vertical with ease!
I suspect the make do and mend mentality is still found in small farming – you patch what is patchable and only use new where things have gone beyond repair, because it’s not economic to do otherwise, or sensible. I’m not sure how the aesthetics in this play for many, although they will for some.
I think it’s really funny/odd that the most regular shaped field on the farm has the historic name of Pretty Field – I find the wonderfully irregular boundaries far prettier. And I like the hedges at least 6 months (6 years?) after they’ve been trimmed, not when they are short back and sides.
For me, the grass growing down the middle of the lane is very important, and when a vehicle with different wheel patterns, or the Council weedkillers start to erode it, I am upset; I do not want to see the tarmac in preference. I enjoy an old plough in a hedge for its charm and the fact that it relates directly to the past. But still, I hate it when I spot a lump of corrugated plastic, or a mess of baler twine hanging in a hedge or on a verge; to me it’s just rubbish that should be disposed of, and something that scars the landscape.
The rusty tin roof that was once shiny and new, is fine and mellow until it is so peppered with holes that it ruins the hay harvest stored underneath.
April 9, 2008 at 12:56 am
eyegillian
I find these two posts quite eye-opening, not only about the rural-urban split but about the sense of history and continuity in England. I have lived in Canada all my life, most of the time in urban settings, and — despite the fact that we probably have more wildlands that anywhere else in the world (by area and per capita) — there is a lot of tension here between preservationists and modernists, in both city and country.
The old Victorian neighbourhoods are being gentrified and therefore, according to some, the city is losing its character. The boreal forests are being logged, the Canadian shield is being mined and developed into million-dollar cottage lots, and tourists visiting the east coast are put out if they can’t find any “real” (translate: old, wooden, falling apart) lobster pots where modern aluminum versions are now used by the “real” fishing folk.
Yet the wild creatures who are increasingly moving into our urban spaces to join the raccoons and squirrels — deer, ‘possums, skunks, foxes, and, in some places, coyotes or polar bears — make the average homeowner panic and call out the animal control officers. It’s hard to see how all this will balance out, how we can enjoy the wildness without destroying it. I guess I’m hoping that, if we try a little harder to subdue our “subdue and dominate” impulses, nature will find a way.
April 9, 2008 at 9:45 pm
colouritgreen
it’s funny how we romanticise old rubbish and hate new rubbish. Today I thought I saw a cigarette butt in the field , I was horrified.. we dont smoke, yet here is someones rubbish thrown down!. when I went to pick it up, it turned out to be yet another bit of clay tobacco pipe. I love these bits.. we are finding lots and I collect them up with glee. but.. its the same thing really.. just an older cigarette butt.
Of course these older things connect us with the past. but the old bits of farm machinery we find the in the hedge are just that.. machinery… yesterdays rubbish. Perhaps we should continue the tradition and just throw are modern day stuff down too? no.. I don’t think so.
We were lucky enough to inherite old Devon banks when we moved here. The perimeter ones have been kept a bit in order by the neigbours.. but the ones inside have been neglected so badly.. the hedge is a row of trees.. the soil trampled away by the horse… Fencing has been part of the recovery. keep the animals off.. then lay the hedge again.. and earth up..
I’m so used to seeing baler twine in the hedge that it looks normal to me. But the hedges that are just cut by machine seem sad…
April 10, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Richard
It’s the less intensively managed corners of this over-populated island that act as a pressure valve. Whether that ‘corner’ is an extra metre of buffer at the edge of a field, or a saltmarsh or thousands of hectares of upland heath - it all makes a difference.
No part of this country hasn’t been shaped by man - there is no true wilderness left - but the ‘wilder’ parts no matter how small make the difference…the diversity.
The question is how to keep the countryside viable and working and not end up with a risk-assessed planning-approved rural theme park? Answers on a postcard.
April 11, 2008 at 10:09 pm
elizabethm
Hmm, this is fascinating. I am torn between an intrinsic sympathy with the make do and mend approach and an aversion to plastic caught on fences blowing in the wind.
You sound to have got it right.
April 12, 2008 at 2:37 pm
LittleFfarm Dairy
Hi Paula -
sorry, this is a bit “off topic” - as you know, I love your Blog, especially as we seem to share one another’s aches & pains! So hope you don’t mind & will join in, have tagged you for a meme after being tagged by Fiona @ Cottage Smallholder (see my April 7th post titled ‘Tagging Along’).
Cheers aye,
Jo + LittleFfarm Dairy menagerie.
P.S. Already on Phase Two Kidding - but STILL waiting for that last bloomin’ ewe to lamb….!!