For those of you who hate the countryside, there is no need to read any further, you will be bored senseless. For those of you who might wonder what the countryside is all about, read on.
It's several years since I moved to this house. It's in a village, much like any other village and I imagine that what I'm about to tell you applies to most rural habitats throughout the UK. When I moved here, the village had four working farms, now there are none. The first farm to go was the smallest, a father and son dairy farm. The farm's cows used to be walked through the village each day, out to pasture, to be brought back to the farm in the afternoon for milking. Following complaints by 'new people' in the village, the farmer had to stop leading the cows through the village. Cows eat a lot and shit a lot, the new people thought it disgraceful that the cows would (occasionally) shit on the road and made a fuss to the local authority about the health and safety hazards created by such an activity. So, the farmer was no longer able to walk his cows through the village to the lush pastures and had to make do with the smaller, inferior paddocks adjacent to his farm. The cows didn't produce as much milk and the supplementary feeding required meant that the farm was running at a loss.
The second farm to go was a larger enterprise, about 400 acres in total and a mixture of arable and dairy farming. Originally, the farm employed two local 'farm hands', who could carry out all of the tasks required on the farm. However, after a number crunching exercise the farmer contracted out the farm work, the two farm hands were made redundant. The contracting out didn't work out and the farm land was sold off, the farmhouse was sold separately, with just a token amount of land for amenity use.
The third farm to go was an arable, tenant farm, about a thousand acres in total. The farmer told me that he just wasn't making any money, so he decided not renew the tenancy. He had tried to negotiate with the supermarket who he supplied his produce to and the 1 penny more (per item) that he needed was refused. The owners of the estate sold off the farmhouse and buildings, the land belongs to an insurance company and is worked by outside contractors.
The fourth and final farm to go was the largest and oldest, spanning 4 generations. Originally the farm had about 2000 acres of land in total, built up over the 4 generations. Over the years many small pockets of land near to the roads, were sold off for building, but the bulk of the land remained. On the face of it, the farm seemed to be prospering, but this was not the case and most of the land had been secretly sold off to an American religious order, the day to day working of the farm was contracted back to the farmer, so on the face of it, the farm appeared intact. Last year, the remaining bits and bobs were sold off and the land is now farmed by outside contractors. For the village, this was the saddest closure, up until 3 years ago one of the first generation farmers was still alive and it must have been devastating to see the farm slowly asset stripped.
Things have changed an awful lot over the years and the way that the countryside now makes money is not particularly pleasant. Shooting has always been a pastime for country people. It used to entail a few landowners getting together and going out shooting a few animals, usually after a skinfull, so usually the shooters missed the (intended) target, but occasionally shot each other instead! Shooting nowadays is a different kettle of fish, it's big business and attracts the wealthy businessmen from faraway towns and cities, who only visit the countryside to play. Around here, pheasants are bred in tens of thousands, kept in enclosures until the day before the shoot and then let out for the massacre. Businessmen pay big money to shoot, they want a return on that investment, so want to shoot lots and lots. Although illegal, pump action shotguns are used and lots and lots of pheasants are shot, far too many to take back home, so they are tipped into the ditches by the barrow load and left to rot.
Some local farmland was sold to a businessman, who has built a racing track. It is noisy and on race days, the local roads are avoided because these too are treated like a race track. Last year two people were killed leaving the racetrack when they took a country lane bend too quickly and hit a tree. Nearby, a local home owner has had his garden fence demolished four times by people leaving the race track, still high on adrenaline from the track racing. His children are no longer allowed to play in the garden. Local horse riders and cyclists no longer venture out on these country roads at weekends, it's just not safe.
'The Hall' in our village used to be a boarding school, but it closed four years ago. It provided employment for the village, from cleaners to teachers and every profession in between. It has recently been purchased by an American, who has very kindly chopped down 80% of the ancient woodland belonging to the estate. Locals were up in arms about what had happened, but pleas to the local council to place tree preservation orders on the woodland were refused. DEFRA did get involved because the trees had been felled without a felling licence, the maximum fine is £2'500, the case was discontinued due to being 'not in the public interest'.
And then we have the human shit mountain. I noticed a lot of activity down a local farmtrack, lots of 'officials' in high vis jackets supervising lorries. A large brown hill appeared on the edge of a field, right next to the public footpath. It is human waste. Due to a loophole in the law, it can be dumped like this, but as soon as it is spread on the field, it has to be ploughed in within hours. So, the little country farm track that used to be so popular with dog walkers, playing children etc. is now strangely empty. No doubt the landowner got a pretty penny for allowing the waste to be dumped. There is money to be made out of the countryside, big money, but it comes at a price.
A farmer in a neighbouring village likes to boast that the money he gets for set aside, runs into six figures each year. He knows how to work the system, get the money for the 'conservation'. But, he doesn't like people using the public footpaths on his land and ran into a pregnant woman with his Land Rover, in order to teach her a lesson about 'trespassing' on his land. He tried a similar tactic with my (75 year old) Dad, but he'd picked the wrong person for an argument. My Dad is great, I have to say that, he reads my blog, and he makes fabulous muffins, but if you get on the wrong side of him...
Despite all of this, I still love the countryside, I don't know any different, but it isn't quite as idyllic and twee as looks from the outside.
