Hello dear friends, Hope you're a patient lot, as these blimmin' blogs are rather sporadic Im afraid, but nevertheless, heres the latest from the land of wind and squally rain. My last missive on the subject of the desecration of the landscape of Tara, has got me thinking about the British attitude towards enclosure and landscape; we do seem to be obsessed with parcelling up land and proclaiming limits to where we can go, and what we can do on it. I would probably have to include allotments in this, but as their very existence is as a consequence of the common people being denied ground to feed their families from the Norman conquest, and subsequent violations by various feudal hierarchies thereafter, I consider them a triumph for the people, albeit a rather diminished one. In the Anglo Saxon period the land considered waste by those that owned it was apportioned to the common man, as "common land," in order to gather fuel, or to graze livestock, this being the only way of life the common people knew, so to be dispossess of this way of life lead to one of two things, leaving to the ever expanding towns, or starve to death, under the noses of their Norman landlords. Territory, and the gaining of it seems to be the upshot, and owning the land means owning the people, and lets face it, you'll never find a more developed class system than here in Britain. In the intervening year many noble beings have tried to bust the stays of the aristocracy and gentry by refusing to play the game. Gerrard Winstanley was the instigator of the "DIGGERS" a band of renegades who set up their own agricultural community on private land in Surrey, in 1649. They were protesting at the increasingly prohibitive inclosure's act, which made it more difficult for those not fortunate to be born with blue blood to feed their families. The landowners retort to this was to destroy all their crops and burn them out of their houses! It all got a bit out of hand which lead directly to the "Riot Act of 1715" which was read aloud by the landowner to any rowdy starving crowd who might be just a bit tetchy at having their existence on this earth plane threatened. With the odds still stacked in favour of the landowners! All this and the countryside fenced off so that only those privileged few born into wealth and position can enjoy it, and you can see how abused the land and its people have become. We do now have extensive "right to roam" unless you roam into an oncoming tank or missile on MOD land, which will curtail all future roaming. But Landscape and our connection to it is so very integral to our culture and our expression of ourselves as natives of these Isles. Our ancient and most sacred monuments are testament to a culture attuned and connected to the rhythm of nature, the land and its seasons. The Earth was to be placated and treat with honour and respect, as it was the provider of all, to all. Arguably territorial ism emerged when hunter gatherers became agriculturalists, and by the nature of growing crops became a static population, and if you'd ploughed hard graft into your plot, you might not be best pleased when some other tribe muscled in on your plantation. We dont know, but I would like to think that you wouldn't stand by and watch your neighbours starve. Presumably the art of barter would be put to good use. What is being practised here is an existence where needs are met, and all are fed."Communist" I hear you cry, well, der!! Common sense and fairness, I reply! Anyway, Im too much of an individualist to be communist!
Banging Weekend to you all, lovelies1
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