Why? Well, we were so surprised about the CRPRE's comments, we looked a little deeper into what they were doing, as you would expect that we should have a lot of common ground. Superficially, that view is correct. Living and working in the countryside we share many common interests with the CPRE in the countryside itself, farming and rural industry, housing and rural planning, energy and waste management.
However, when you scratch away the surface veneer, you find a huge difference. There are those who realise that since man was a hunter-gatherer (and what better place to talk about such things as here, in the shadow of Stonehenge) the relationship of man with the countryside has been one of constant and massive change. Change that was essential to the life and development not only of the local communities, but the whole country and our national and international interests. Most folk who live and work in the countryside seem to understand that need for change intuitively and embrace it. We call them countryfolk.
On the other hand, you have those who wish to preserve an unchanging and unchangeable version of an idealised view of what the English countryside should be - and impose that view on everyone else. It seems that many in the CPRE might fall into that category; and particularly when it comes to roads.
Many supporters of this philosophy don't actually live in the countryside, you can't really class those who have second homes here, or who only visit once in a Preston Guild, as true countryfolk. Wearing a flat cap, or green wellies, or driving a Land Rover round central London doesn't make you countryfolk either. We get the feeling that too many of those pushing these ideas of chocolate box stasis and preservation might better be described as countryfauk; faux countryfolk who are apt to be the first to complain about mud/rain/grass/smells, etc in the countryside. The ones who bemoan the lack of "culture". The first to moan to parish councils about the noise of crowing cockerels, the first to start petitions to halt the chiming of rural clocks and those whose whines outdo the Sunday tintinnabulators - whose hobby they would stop. In other words, the archetypal rural NIMBYs.
Must come as shock to countryfauk that many countryfolk actually embrace rural change. Some of us are even IMBYs.
5 comments:
The thing that struck me about the CPRE comment was want they actually want to preserve is the countryside as in the landscape. They seem to have absolutely no regard for the villages that have been impacted so severely by the huge increase in traffic diverting off the A303 to avoid congestion. Don't we fall within the definition of Rural England?
I think you are correct. There is a huge gulf between this idealistic form of preservation that the CPRE espouse, when what is needed is the application of more realistic and sustainable conservation.
That blog says it all about those who think they are country but actually want the best of both worlds. Why are the top fauk in CPRE living in London...so completely out of touch with what they're supposed to be in touch with!!?
What particularly worries me is that pontifications by representatives of bodies such as CPRE amongst others, and that would include our August fiends (sorry, friends) at E.H. are taken as irrevocable truths, that in short periods of time, are conveniently ignored, or denied, despite tha fact that, at the time of utterance they can be easily proved as claptrap; but it seems to me that, unless one is a personage whose opinion is respected, such ludicous statements are taken as read by such huge numbers of people, and used as the 'baseline' for their future thoughts on the matter.Clearly Ralph Smyth is either profoundly out of touch with the realities, or he is working to some very twisted agenda. Question is, who among the elevated London ensemble is going to rubbish the pronouncement??
Dear Janice and Dr Strange, you both raise interesting and pertinent points. I guess the simplistic answer to some of your points is that "stuff" happens in London because it is the capital and seat of government. Most rural folk loathe cities and only go there under protest, so inevitably roles on rural issues will be filled from the ranks of countryfauk. Of course, broadband and the internet could have meant that countryfolk could have participated in these roles remotely, but the digital divide between urban and rural areas and the ineptitude of those tasked with providing rural broadband has ensured that the status quo ante prevails.
As far as the good Mr Smyth goes, please don't forget that he is a barrister by training. Barristers, though I am sure they would protest otherwise otherwise, exist to promote their clients interests in court, selecting and using only the evidence that supports their client's case and ignoring, suppressing, or rubbishing any evidence that supports a contrary view.
That doesn't mean that they actively lie. They are just complete strangers to objective truth.
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