Real England by Paul Kingsnorth

The Battle Against the Band

Although written a few years ago now, and not strictly about Sussex, this book does follow another theme of mine, which is the preservation of our unique landscape.

The Real England pulls together a series of characters that are kicking out against the move towards a nation of identikit cities, streets and countryside. Contrary to what the media will have you believe they're not all unwashed hordes taking to trees and battling the police, the people we encounter here are striking because of their normality; their everyday-ness. The stand up to corporate giants like Tesco, and the faceless corporations that would have you believe your life is enhanced if you have a Starbucks on every corner, and two branches of Tesco in between.

There is a melancholy feel to the book, for as time as passed since it was written it is evident nothing has changed, other than the government, and that this drive, if anything, may have increased. The only check now is the economic downturn.

As I read the book, I started to wonder if the real battle wasn't against the move towards clone towns, but as much a battle against the blandness of people, who just accept that this is the way and are happy to spend their weekends queuing to park in huge out of town retail parks, or equally monolithic urban shopping centres; where the cost of parking is deliberately prohibitive to stop you straying too far from it's grasp.

The characters we meet  in Kingsnorth's well-researched, and evocatively written book are striving against being eaten up by this sort of development. It's a cry for a Britain we all cherish, but few are prepared to fight to save from this creeping ruin. It puts me in mind of the best of past writings in a similar vein; Akenfield and Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay; while Kingsnorth's book is more national, the subject is similarly sad; that we are leaving behind a lot of the character of England in order to line the purses of the corporate fat cats.

As the MP,  Jim Dowd puts it - ask people if they want to keep their local shop and they all agree, ask how many actually use it and the figures plummet. 

As a historian I know that change is to some degree inevitable, and is often for the good; Kingsnorth seemingly agrees with this; it's not the development and the growth that is the issue, it is the manner in which it is done. The way in which progress is sold as a good thing, even when those it affects disagree, but are not given a voice to protest.

The theme here is really that place is an important part of our identity. Without a sense of place those things that hold communities together are broken down. After this book was published there were several days of rioting across the UK, and it is no coincidence that Real England talks about the alienation of people who, if they are not "consumers" have their rights and needs reduced. The drive to sameness destroys that sense of place, whether it's from disinterested staff in coffee shops repeating the 'five steps to customer satisfaction' mantras (I've been in here hundreds of times, you've served me, I know the sugar is behind me...) or the identikit estates that homebuilders want us to come home to and shut the door on the world around us.

The conclusion does offer hope though, I just fear that the people who read these books are already converts, and that we need to change the habits of the bland masses; the sheep that stream into the great concrete cathedrals to consumerism to spend, spend, spend and to hell with the consequences. I wonder if the oil tanker has gone too far and it's too late to turn it round before it hits the wall, however hard we stamp on the brakes. That's my fear, that we've gone too far, ceded too much power, worried so much about 'growth' and profit that all the words in the world probably won't slay the consumerist dragon.

I really urge anyone who has an interest in such matters to buy the book, preferably from an independent bookseller rather than a global corporation with a shady tax-paying record; or maybe see if your library has a copy.
 

The blog of the book can be found here Real England Blog; and more about Paul can be found here and here.

The Burphams and Tansy

Downland is littered with evidence of prior habitation, from great Iron Age forts like that at Cissbury to smaller communities deserted in more modern history. There are a number of deserted medieval villages (DMVs as us historians call them), scattered across the landscape from the Manhood peninsula right across to the Kent border.

Burpham is one such site, but is unusual in that the community was apparently abandoned and moved lock stock and barrel a short distance north. In medieval times trade and profitability governed the success of a community and if a village was not profitable it was simply abandoned. This process may have been accelerated by famine, plague or in the case of a number of coastal communities they were simply washed away, or became victims of longshore drift. Sometimes the landscape was changed when landowners converted to sheep farming and simply razed the dwellings to the ground. It is erroneous to assume that all abandoned communities are as a result of the Black Death, as is often said, the circumstance is often far more complex.

Burpham's name tells us that it was one of King Alfred's Saxon burghs, and therefore must have been considered important at the time, and was fortified, probably to protect a notable crossing of the Arun, in whose crook it nestles.

The subsequent construction of a castle at Arundel, strongly fortified the area and it is generally understood that this checked further development at Burpham, which became a farming community and moved away from the fortified site at around this time. The mound and associated lumps and bumps of this former community remain to be seen just south of the current village, which is a real gem in the Downland landscape.

One of Burpham's most famous residents was the Victorian apiarist and local vicar Tickner Edwardes. who wrote several volumes on his subject, many of which fetch high prices even today. He also wrote 'Tansy', a story of a Downland romance, which was very popular in it's day and was subsequently made into a silent  film by Cecil Hepworth one of the British film industry's earliest directors. Hepworth eventually went bankrupt, and most of his film was melted down for the valuable silver nitrate to pay off his debts. A copy of 'Tansy' fortunately survived this disaster and is at the British Film Institute.

'Tansy' was filmed around Burpham, and used several local people as incidental characters. Because of the aforementioned lack of development of the area about Burpham many of the locations used are extant, and can be seen today.

In the book 'Sussex Pilgrimages', written by the great travel writer RP Hopkins, at about the same time as the film was released, a whole chapter is dedicated to a walk written by local resident Betty Ellis. Designed to take in the locations of the film and the book, it seems the walk, which is of around 12 miles is still possible today. In my next piece I intend to attempt to follow Betty's instructions, and recreate the walk.

Of special interest to me, is the fact that as long ago as the early 1920s she was complaining about 'arguments over access and rights of way at Amberley Castle, and although I have walked extensively in the area I am not familiar with the specific right of way she is referring to, but I look forward to seeing what became of it.

The reason I have chosen to wrote about Burpham is to follow from the earlier post this week To Build or Not to Build  which discusses the impact and short-termism of current environmental policies. Burpham is neither accessible, nor on any major road. In fact, it's at the end of the road. There's not a great deal of parking, and bike, boat or foot are the best and easiest ways to get there. This doesn't prevent it from being a popular place to visit, and a real gem of this part of the world. The walk, as most of the places I describe here, with one or two exceptions can be, and should be, reached by public transport.