And Another Thing...: Early One Morning
...I can now enjoy for real, every day, what others may only imagine or remember. Under the expansive Suffolk sky, close to open tracts unchanged since John Constable painted his bucolic masterpieces, and the sea which inspired Benjamin Britten's opera, Peter Grimes, I feel privileged to walk, whenever I wish, on the banks of the River Orwell, largely unspoilt save for the distant view of the science-fiction metal monsters towering menacingly over the container port of Felixstowe, and the millionaire-playground yachting marinas...
Arthur Loosley revels in the freedom of retirement in rural England.
Please do visit Arthur's entertaining Web site http://www.wordsweb.co.uk/
"The first sound in the mornings was the clumping of the mill-girls' clogs down the cobbled street."
The opening lines from George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier conjure up an image of north country working life in the not-so-distant past, reminiscent of those busily peopled scenes depicted on canvas by L S Lowry. Nostalgia can blur reality, but the human mind is susceptible to moods generated by sights and sounds, and the sounds we hear in our waking moments can set the mood for the day ahead.
In common with many of my fellow countrymen and women I have for many years woken each morning to the strains of a medley of traditional music from the four constituent parts of the British Isles, with the 'drunken sailor' ditty thrown in for good measure to remind us of our maritime heritage, all woven into a BBC Radio Four anthem which some may consider to rival the official national anthem. The BBC in its wisdom decided to drop it, in spite of protests in Parliament and elsewhere from many who regret the abandonment of something so rich in 'British-ness' - not in a political, racist or triumphal sense but as a pleasant and inoffensive reminder of the people and countryside of our islands.
I am fortunate, after a life spent mainly in the increasing congestion and pollution of London, to have retired to where I can appreciate the joys of the countryside - something denied to the vast majority of the population of the UK. I can now enjoy for real, every day, what others may only imagine or remember. Under the expansive Suffolk sky, close to open tracts unchanged since John Constable painted his bucolic masterpieces, and the sea which inspired Benjamin Britten's opera, Peter Grimes, I feel privileged to walk, whenever I wish, on the banks of the River Orwell, largely unspoilt save for the distant view of the science-fiction metal monsters towering menacingly over the container port of Felixstowe, and the millionaire-playground yachting marinas, and am reminded of these further words by George Orwell (real name, Eric Blair) who took his pen-name from the river, perhaps while walking on the same ground that I traversed today while composing my thoughts:
" In spite of hard trying, man has not yet succeeded in doing his dirt everywhere . . . Perhaps if you looked for them, you might even find streams with live fish in them instead of salmon tins.''
But of course, those words were written before the days of plastic bottles, supermarket trolleys, oil slicks and other products of the effluent society inherited from the Industrial Revolution in which those Wigan clog girls played their part.
It's always a good thing to remember the good things, to mask some of the pain of modern living, and it seems a pity that the BBC now prefers to forget them although I, for one, am thankful that there are still some places not completely defiled by the advances (or degeneration?) of civilisation, but for how much longer?
©2007 Arthur Loosley
