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THE VERNACULAR OF PLACE AND PEOPLE:
a threat to our rural culture
What curious disorientating times we are entering into! A blink of the eye and we register something has changed out there and nobody asked me, or you. Sadness at why those trees have been felled, or the almost overnight disappearance of that building. Perhaps none was particularly beautiful but part of me (and I suspect you) had a pang and mourned a little.
This has led me to ponder over the fate which might be awaiting our dear Worcestershire and for me to consider whether my concerns are purely transient thought-mumblings, or am I pining the gradual passing of a county that was known for that almost precious characteristic of all: that of the quiet interaction of its people without bombast and intolerance.
Our county knew about change long before most other parts of our country. The great Benedictines largely influenced what our countryside was to turn into - I suppose the centralised nature of the spread of agriculture and the management of our woodlands from their great monastic houses at Worcester, Evesham, Pershore and Malvern, was a sort of collectivisation of its time. Following this, the large estates shared the methods and technology of the Agricultural Revolution. But it was the `jobs on the side'
which developed in the 18th century from seeds sown around the Dick Brook, then downstream in Stourport and onwards to Birmingham and the Black Country, gathering that `moss' of knowledge on the way that we now refer to as the Industrial Revolution. The moss is still there and those in the Black Country still see themselves as from Worcestershire. What these men and women started and took with them has spread far and wide to the extent that the `poor starving China' of our childhood has become the
manufacturing workshop of the world.
John Betjeman, in his essay in the 1950s on the urbanisation of our county, was taken up by Simon Jenkins when he wrote "With each passing year, the dark stain of the West Midlands spreads farther into Worcestershire..... yet the county remains predominantly rural." I met them both. But to me the more painful writings to read are those of Arthur Mee in his `Worcestershire' and Tudor Edwards, in his book of the same name. Roy Palmer's new book `The Folklore of Worcestershire' and David Lloyd's
`History of Worcestershire' must be added to these two. If these writings had been contemporary with Thomas Hardy, I might have been able to cope with a dose of detachment mixed with a dollop of nostalgia - but no, it is the mourning of the loss of a culture that was ours, when we made decisions in all matters civic and rural. Our grandparents, and theirs, understood the balance of production and tenure of the land more closely than in our times.
Last year I was at a gathering where rural poverty in our county was being discussed. Some spoke about the paucity of public transport, having to travel five miles to the doctor's surgery, village schools under threat from a decline in numbers, Post Offices and the village shop lost, noise from traffic on the main roads a mile away. But what had this to do with poverty, I wondered? When the word poverty did show itself, someone said that in his opinion there were no poor in his rural area. In the sense
of hunger and the inability of those to provide for themselves and their children, no doubt country people are better off than a century ago. However, it is the Diaspora of families and whole communities during the last forty years that causes me to wince. Having moved away
after centuries living in their villages, I have learnt of two families having to try to adapt to an urban lifestyle. The children had to go into industries that were alien to their parents and would sometimes collapse in subsequent years, leaving a new generation bereft, disorientated from their roots. Rural skills have been lost and communities now have to be guided and governed, often to a norm set by others who may be insensitive to the person's origins.
A new perception of rurality has been born. The pretty houses and cottages have been snapped up and there is an acute danger of all signs of the farming families being obliterated. Some time ago, I visited a derelict stone farmhouse over the border in Herefordshire. The stone flagged floor had grooved troughs and drainage holes set every yard or so which led to conduits below. Water could be directed from the nearby stream and the floors washed, draining out of the building by the same route. The new owners
had other ideas and the floor of this 15th Century building was covered.
Other changes in the name of restoration and improvement may include adding a conservatory (conserving I know not what), plus exposed beams and `period features' where none existed before. The hollyhocks and bean poles in the front garden have made way for coloured pavers where cars parked overnight are intermittently illuminated by security lights of such intensity that the owners would have been imprisoned for their use during the airraid years of the Second World War.
Our purpose is to protect rural England. This is not restricted to our landscape with its varied and ever changing composition and uses, but its people, those whose countryside is a layer of their skin. It is for us all to continue with our questions and explain that their answers may not be acceptable. This task requires the vigilance of all of us.
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