Oh, to be in England

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en Picture by Immanuel Gant

When Stanley Johnson, father of the British Prime Minister, announced that his son, Boris, ‘almost took one for the team’ in becoming gravely ill with Covid-19, I was puzzled.  Hearing this as mere cringe-makingly archaic, public school-speak, a metaphor for the rugby field or the regiment, was somehow not quite sufficient as an explanation.  Rather, it suggested something sacrificial, as if we were to consider his son a Christ-like figure, whose calling was to give up his life on our behalf, so that we might be saved. 

By contrast, when Health Secretary, Matt Hancock admitted on The Andrew Marr Show yesterday that the spread of the virus was out of control, there was an air of defeat about him.  He appeared to speak, not from the usual elevated position of government ministers, to subordinates who are to be duped and controlled, but rather as our equal, confiding in us.  The diet of grandiosity that we have become accustomed to receiving from those who run our country was suddenly absent.  Strangely, witnessing this glimpse of vulnerability in his sharing the worst with us was, despite being alarming, rather more acceptable.   It made me reflect upon the stories that the UK tells itself and others about who we are. 

Our leaders have proclaimed that, in seeking to find a response to the global pandemic, we are creating a ‘world-beating’ test-and-trace system.  Likewise, we were the first country in the world to roll out a vaccination programme because we are ‘a much better country’ than others.   The Brexit mantra is that we are going to ‘take back control of our borders, our money and our laws’, indeed, to ‘get our country back’ from those in Europe who have diminished us.  

The words of ‘Rule Britannia’ attest to these ideas being nothing new.  This dominant and pugilistic stance that we as a nation have adopted towards others is striking.  Where does such a ferocity of competitiveness come from?  How is it that we have gone beyond having pride in ourselves, and tipped over into superiority?  As a seafaring nation, we once created an empire.  To achieve this, we brutally enslaved others to create wealth for ourselves and we plundered the natural resources of other lands.  This apparently made us a great nation. 

Of course, we were not the only people to create an empire and commit crimes against humanity.  However, there is something so dominant about English behaviour in particular that it has alienated and oppressed even those closest to us, namely the people of Wales, Scotland and Ireland.  Unsurprisingly, the calls from Scotland and Wales for independence from England grow more insistent whilst Ireland’s ongoing convulsions over independence from the English are legendary.  Unsurprisingly also, the EU have stood firm against our boasting that we shall not only leave the club but keep all the benefits. 

In an attempt to answer the question about how we have become so obsessed with our own greatness, a psychological understanding of the English psyche may help.  If we were a patient on the couch, a deeply narcissistic presentation would be noted.  The puffed-up, ‘punching above our weight’, strutting of a tiny island off the coast of a large continent suggests a massive defence against an unconscious sense of inferiority.  England’s dominance and control of the other countries in the union of the United Kingdom resembles a bigger sibling who bullies, envies and controls the little ones, for fear of losing its place.

Our attitude towards Europe suggests we have not attained the developmental goals of learning how to give and take, and to think about the needs of the other.  You can only be in our gang so long as you understand that we are in charge and we make the rules.  And you must also understand that we always have to win.  If we think we are going to lose we will break those rules – because we can.  We cannot tolerate losing because that would put us in touch with an unbearable sense of our own vulnerability.

So here we are.  The independence that we have demanded for so long, is what we must rely upon now.  We are on the verge of leaving the EU, with Europe refusing to give us what we want, and we English are frogmarching the other home nations along with us, they who appear to want to get away from us at the first opportunity.  Many countries are closing their borders to us today because we are incubating a more infectious variant of Covid than has been known hitherto.  It really feels like we are on our own.  And it is frightening because we urgently need supplies of vaccine from Belgium and we need France to open its borders so that deliveries of food and medicines can reach us. 

My hope is that this national crisis may prove to be a wake-up call to us, to take a look at who we really are and what are our true vulnerabilities.  I no longer want to be ashamed of being English.  I don’t want to be better than everyone else.  I want us to be the best we can be, by sharing with others what we have to offer, and by learning with appropriate humility from them and by receiving from them, with gratitude.  No individual or nation can manage alone, without collaborating with others and that involves understanding what mutuality and relationship really mean.    

Finding the good in ourselves

Photograph courtesy of David Adams photos.

I have recently witnessed the funerals of three local people; two from the village where I live and one in a neighbouring village. The national lockdown due to the pandemic has severely restricted the number of mourners who can attend funeral services. This, together with the social distancing measures imposed including keeping two metres apart from grieving relatives, mask-wearing, prohibition on singing and no opportunity to gather afterwards for refreshments, has resulted in some bleak and comfortless occasions.

However, during these challenging times something quite uplifting has emerged. Because they could not attend the place of worship for the service, local people have come out of their homes and waited as the funeral procession comprising the very few permitted mourners, has passed by. And they have waited outside churches in silence while the services have taken place, and then accompanied the emerging mourners to the burial. Family members have commented on how supported they felt by friends and neighbours who have been present in this way. Such acts have been not a posthumous gesture at the repatriation of the military dead nor a mass public response to a royal death. Rather they are respectful observances of the passing of an ordinary person – our neighbour, our friend.

The sight of the hearse’s progress at a very slow walking pace behind the funeral director on foot, followed by the permitted few, has been extremely moving to witness. It has seemed to me to offer a fitting and dignified marking of the end of a life which, however unremarkable, is always a moment of profound solemnity. I am reminded of the personal effort in years gone by, which used to be expended upon the preparation for and burial of the dead by local communities, before that responsibility was passed to professionals. In many instances, the body of the dead relative or neighbour would be carried on foot for miles along designated routes to the nearest piece of consecrated ground.

Perhaps, out of adverse circumstances, we have recovered something of the best in ourselves to offer to each other. May such gentle consideration last.

We Are Not Entitled

One of the things which Covid-19 seems to have exposed is the extent to which people feel such a sense of entitlement to travel

Few of us saw this pandemic coming.  I, in my ignorance, believed that infectious diseases were a thing of the past.   I thought that modern medicine had largely defeated the killer infections of earlier centuries, through mass vaccination programmes.

The announcement of national lockdown in the UK, to stay at home for the sake of safety, our own and others’, was difficult to take in.  It was like a domino effect approaching – China, South Korea, Italy, Spain, then us.  No going to work, no school or college, no meeting friends or family, no leisure pursuits outside the home, no travelling.  Our taken for granted freedoms were being limited and it was shocking.

But of course, we also understood that the government, whatever one thinks of them, was seeking to protect us from a deadly presence which was stealing through our country, killing at random.  Not since the last war on these shores was the whole population agreeable to taking orders from central government on the detail of how we must behave to stay alive and defend our country.

The mass deaths that followed and the tragic nature of the ensuing bereavements are matched only by the rising rates of mental, social and financial problems amongst the whole population.  We shall not know what are the long-term consequences of this pandemic, for either individuals or the world, until much more time has elapsed.

And while twenty-one weeks on from the start of lockdown, the infection rates have reduced dramatically, we are not yet free from danger.  As we gradually begin to restore some of our former ways of living, Covid-19, our invisible foe, reminds us that it is still here and just as deadly.  The more we ‘open up’, the more we risk the virus spreading again.

Of course, achieving compliance in the population hasn’t been a smooth process.  Early on some people just didn’t understand ‘stay at home’, believing that if they drove to a remote place to exercise the dogs, there was no harm in it.  Some continued to meet up with friends and family, in plain defiance of the rules.  Others in high office believed the law didn’t apply to them, making journeys without apparent justification – and escaped punishment which did little to promote a sense that we were all in it together.

But it wasn’t long before a general understanding and acceptance of the need to pull together was replaced by a widespread sense of grievance about being confined.  And so the protests grew louder.  ‘How much longer do we have to make these sacrifices?  We just want to get on with our lives.  We deserve a holiday after all we’ve been through!’

So what does getting on with our lives mean?  Sadly, for many of us it appears to mean returning to a state of unthinking hedonism.  Despite the continuing risks, people demanded the right to go to the pub, to meet up with their mates, to go to the beach and to holiday abroad.  And the government, like others across the world, preoccupied by lasting damage to the economy, was keen to oblige.  So the pubs have reopened, people are being offered subsidised meals to ‘eat out to help out’ and lobbying from the airlines and tourist industry resulted in the restoration of flights to holiday destinations in the sun.

But how is it that we have come to feel so entitled?  Amongst other things, we feel entitled to travel wherever we want, when we want no matter what the consequences, the most immediately obvious of which is spreading the virus.  How remarkable that despite vast numbers of people in the world suffering without enough to eat or no shelter, we in the affluent West seem to find it unthinkable to go without a holiday abroad even for one summer – and in the face of a deathly pandemic.

Just for a little while, during the national lockdown, the air was cleaner and many species of flora and fauna began to recover from the onslaught of pollution.  People commented on how they heard birdsong for the first time in their urban neighbourhoods and many were surprised by a sense of wellbeing which accompanied life with less noise and more stillness.  But these delightful discoveries were not precious enough.  Indeed, it’s not enough to hear irrefutable evidence of the catastrophic damage we are doing to the planet on which we all depend by, amongst other things, emissions from air travel and motorised vehicles. Instead, we put our energies into demanding the restoration of our ‘right’ to move around freely.

It is clear that there are no straightforward solutions to the way the world is currently organised, based on an assumption of exponential growth.  If, for example, the tourism trade across the world declines, many people lose their jobs and livelihoods.  And yet tourism is an unsustainable industry.   Travel is a luxury and cannot continue to be built into society as a given.  We must face up to the consequences of this sense of entitlement to unlimited travel because one day soon there may be no habitable planet to travel around.

Photograph by Adrian Pingstone – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2961280

 

A Case for Preserving National Parks as Quiet Places

As keen walkers and lovers of the natural world, my partner and I seek out those remaining areas of the UK where we can enjoy the landscape and wildlife, in tranquillity.   On the Pennine Way, approaching the summit of Great Shunner Fell, it feels as if you are on top of the world.  All that can be heard is the rasping of wind through grasses, its gusting past your ears or the alarm calls of ground-nesting birds.  The valley bottoms of this precious national park are hidden from view, far below and the only people encountered are long-distance walkers or an intrepid few with the energy and appetite to explore the windswept uplands.  No tarmac roads means no cars and therefore an escape from the noise and air pollutants of the combustion engine – at least for a while.

In centuries past, prior to the landgrab by the powerful in society, known euphemistically as the Enclosure Movement, common land existed for the benefit of everyone.  Today, those who are not ‘landed’ rely upon the few remaining green spaces available to all.  National parks were formally designated to preserve in perpetuity the landscape and traditional ways of living and working, by demarcating unspoilt places of natural beauty to be held in trust for the nation.   The demand for such places means that millions of visits are made to them each year, demonstrating how great is the interest in and need for the benefits which they can bring.  Many studies^{1, 2, 3} have shown that mental wellbeing is enhanced by contact with the natural world.  My own experience accords with the research findings.  I feel a physical change in my body when we arrive in the National Park and I first glimpse the great contours of green interspersed with pale limestone, rising to high horizons in all directions.  It is as if my heart is literally lifted and my eyes soothed before a vision of the natural colours and materials I was evolved to look upon.

Of course, there are many environmentalists, including the likes of George Monbiot, who argue powerfully that national parks are too manicured and insufficiently biodiverse to be truly wild and a good case is made for their overhaul.  In the meantime, however, let us not underestimate the value of what we already have and ensure we protect the parks against sources of immediate threat.   I refer particularly to the increased presence of 4×4 off-roading along green lanes and granting of permits for scrambling bike circuits.

During recent visits to the Yorkshire Dales National Park we have encountered convoys of 4x4s, engines revving to negotiate deeply undulating bridleways as they gouge ever-deeper ruts in the ground.  Greatly dismayed we were too, when faced with a fleet of thrill-seeking quad bikers tearing along the Cam High Road, in Wensleydale, an ancient road built by the Romans where the original road surface survives in places.  And just for the record – these were no farmers rounding up sheep or delivering feed to their flocks.

The Roman road known as Cam High Road

On another occasion, in Upper Swaledale which is served by no metalled road, the tranquillity of the place was wrecked by the whine of scrambling bikes scaling the fellside before descending steep gradients to race back to the start of another circuit.  Are not those activities which involve noise, pollution and even the erosion of historical artefacts incompatible with the ethos of the national parks?

Of course, it is possible to argue that national parks are victims of their own success given their popularity.  However, the scarce resources we have exist to be shared by all and there are some activities such as driving and riding motorbikes which can be done anywhere –  even within the boundaries of the national parks – on established highways.  And how those vehicles make their presence known on the roads and in the towns and villages!  You only have to be on the approaches to Hawes or Kirby Lonsdale to feel threatened by the would-be, death-defying bikers or to be offended by the roaring engines in their multitudes as they congregate.

For those people who need peace and quiet, respite from work and stress, is it not time to keep the fells, footpaths, byways, bridleways and green lanes for walking or simply being immersed in the natural world?

 References – accessed 15/04/2018
1 https://www.countryliving.com/uk/wellbeing/news/a180/mental-health-benefits-nature-outdoors-study/

2 http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/4513819616346112

3 https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/ecotherapy/benefits-of-ecotherapy/#.WtN5QJch3IU

 

 

 

 

 

Life Sentence

Did you see this?
Stripped of her dignity, she was.
A former beauty,
Scarred and disfigured
From beatings and rape.
Used as a plaything, it says,
Forced to go on giving him what he wanted:
His rights
His daily bread.
Her body driven over and left for dead.
In the end, she sets fire to herself.

And the brute that’s done this?
He’s gone down.
Reckons he won’t be able to live without her…
Only himself to blame.

 

© Angela Webb 2018

 

Who Cares About Spring?

Image by David Adams Photos

‘Oh to be in England, now that April’s there’.

So wrote Robert Browning in 1845 when, having settled in Italy, he reflected on what it would be like back home in the Spring.  It was the natural landscape that he imagined and alluded to, where change was heralded by the signs of new life in trees, plants and animals.   At the time, despite the Industrial Revolution unfolding apace, people were still immersed in ancient traditions and seasonal observances.

But what is it that Spring means to those of us living in Britain today?  I fear that it has little to do with oceanic feelings of wonder in response to the beauty and power of the natural world.  I suspect the usual associations to Spring are more likely to be:

Changing the clocks
Shopping for this season’s fashions
Donning shorts and flip flops on the first sunny day
Heading for the airport for the ‘Great British Getaway’
Time to set up the barbecue
Chocolate eggs
The start of the wedding season.

While it might be a little different for those in rural communities, our largely urbanised society has less reason to marvel at the changes occurring in the natural world in Spring.  I mean, why would you even notice the cycle of life in flora and fauna if you live in a city or a town?  Green spaces that used to provide some counterbalance to concrete and metal are falling victim to speculative development.  Trees that line suburban streets are being felled to make way for increased traffic.

So why, having grown up in such surroundings, would you have cause to think that plants and animals are of any relevance to you?  Still less, why might you ever imagine that your life depended on the health and survival of the natural environment?

There are certain points of reference that demand our attention.  We are preoccupied by the insistent pull of social media, online shopping, fast food, celebrity gossip, football, coveting the latest electronic device, getting a ‘good job’, booking a bargain city break.

And the tragedy is that no connection appears to be made between these habits and climate change, the extinction of the white rhino or the state of the oceans.

It is an artificial lifestyle that we have manufactured, increasingly reliant upon gadgets and synthetic materials that we don’t need.   We expect immediate gratification without thought for the consequences.

Meanwhile our dear, precious home, this one Earth which gives us every last thing we have is steadily and rapidly dying.  With reckless disregard, we continue to plunder, pollute and kill its fragile balance.

I prefer to think that we really do not know rather than that we really don’t care.  Who in their right mind would kill the one on whom their survival depends?  But whatever the cause of the situation, it seems that the task of the utmost urgency is somehow to recover our collective right mind.