Damnation! It’s all about damnation.
Britain, it seems, has a shady fifth column, the adherents of which, under a sweet-sounding banner of all things to do with our beautiful countryside, are intent upon undermining our nation.
I refer to an outfit called the Wildlife and Countryside Link. Their website introduces them as follows:
Wildlife and Countryside Link (Link) is the largest environment and wildlife coalition in England, bringing together 82 organisations to use their strong joint voice for the protection of nature. Our members campaign to conserve, enhance and access our landscapes, animals, plants, habitats, rivers and seas. Together we have the support of over eight million people in the UK and directly protect over 750,000 hectares of land and 800 miles of coastline.
This week, this collection of malcontents produced a report that informed an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) that the British countryside is influenced by “racist, colonial legacies” and “dominated by white people”.
Well, I live in the British countryside (or “white space” as the APPG’s report labels it) and I’m here to declare that, in my opinion, the report is bullshit. In fact, not only is it bullshit but it is also dangerous because this unspeakable set of beings unfairly and entirely unnecessarily undermine our nation and all of the people in it, of whatever colour or heritage.
One of the gems of post-WW2 British theatre was a 1948 play titled The Lady’s Not For Burning. Written by Christopher Fry it is set in fifteenth century England. The protagonist, Thomas Mendip, a discharged soldier, says this:
I’ve never seen a world
So festering with damnation. I have left
Rings of beer on every alehouse table
From the salt sea-coast across half a dozen counties,
But each time I thought I was on the way
To a faintly festive hiccup
The sight of the damned world sobered me up again.
Feels like 1948 all over again!
Dear Wildlife and Countryside Link,
We are not racist. All are welcome in the British countryside. These green spaces, forests, hills and dales, mountains, waterways and coasts are not the result of ‘racist, colonial legacies’ any more than those of any other country or culture are.
Yes, of course, our countryside stems from British history and culture because … well … er … it is British. By the same token, I’m sure you could quickly identify differences if you found yourself in, say, the French, German or Italian countrysides. Or, even, the Tunisian or Nigerian or Thai countrysides. Every nation’s countryside is distinct insofar as it is the result of its specific geography and centuries of history. Obvs!
There may, admittedly, be some reticence in the British character when it comes to relating with those who are ‘foreigners’ - but, traditionally, a foreigner might well be someone from a town of village just a handful of miles away.
Sadly, both of my parents-in-law have now died but my dear wife informs me that it took my mother-in-law’s father a full ten years before he would join my father-in-law for a pint of beer at the pub. Why? Because mother-in-law’s family were from Yorkshire but she had had the audacity to fall in love with a bloke from Suffolk.
So, dear Wildlife and Countryside Link, please, do stop making unjustified, harmful and self-harmful statements. By the by, to help you do that, you might like to get some help to reverse your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion brainwashing. You do realize, don’t you, that this form of anti-racism is racist?
Mind you, there is one category of countryside visitor that we might usefully do without. I refer, of course, to those dog walkers who go to the trouble of bagging their pets’ pooh … but then hang the pooh-filled bag on a hedge or gate, or just leave it on the ground. Be they white, black, brown or sky-blue-pink, they are unspeakable!
Having taken down my copy of The Lady’s Not For Burning from the bookshelf to check the lines printed earlier, I inevitably thumbed through the play. When I came to the following speech, from Act 3, it stopped me in my tracks. It just seems so appropriate. It is again spoken by the protagonist, Thomas, to Richard who is an orphaned clerk. In its second outing, at the Globe Theatre in London, in May 1949, Thomas was played by John Gielgud and Richard by Richard Burton. When I read this, I see those two towering performers in my mind’s eye:
I’ve been cast adrift on a raft of melancholy.
The night-wind passed me, like a sail across
A blind man’s eye. There it is,
The interminable tumbling of the great grey
Main of moonlight, washing over
The little oyster-shell of this month of April:
Among the raven-quills of the shadows
And on the white pillows of men asleep:
The night’s a pale pastureland of peace,
And something condones the world, incorrigibly.
But what, in fact, is this vaporous charm?
We’re softened by a nice conglomeration
Of the earth’s uneven surface, refraction of light,
Obstruction of light, condensation, distance,
And that sappy upshot of self-centred vegetablism
The trees of the garden. How is it we come
To see this as a heaven in the eye?
Why should we hawk and spit out ecstasy
As though we were nightingales, and call these quite
Casual degrees and differences
Beauty?
These lines are, to me, extraordinarily and wonderfully English. So, while not suggesting that we dismiss the less salubrious aspects of our history, let’s not be shy about telling others, whatever their colour or heritage, about the wonderful features and great achievements of the cluster of nations that is Britain. Who knows, perhaps that background is one of the reasons that so many want to come here?
Thanks for reading.