`Conserving the countryside'
Sir: 'It seems to me sometimes that the industrial revolution has left scars not only on England from which her towns and countryside may never recover but also a scar on her soul which has made her all but give up the struggle to re- tain what is still so beautiful.'
So began a letter typical of the growing volume of correspond- ence and articles to be published in the national press, bemoaning the deterioration of the landscape prompting little success so far. Perhaps the rot has set in. Per- haps the legacy of the industrial revolution, the creation of the Glaswegian Clyde. the Rhondda Valley, I yneside. the Black Coun- try. the East End of London. has bitten in too deep. More impor- tant the social consequences that went with this development and the complete failure to change things. i.e. 'the Land fit for Heroes' is responsible for the present apathy and the root cause of per- haps all the bitterness that is such a feature of national life today.
In the early 'fifties a book called Landscape in Distress (whose title would suggest the state of affairs to be found anywhere in the North of England) was written about no less a place than Oxford, an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Just as we today have the accumulation of 150 years' indus- trial deterioration so in fifty years' time w will our great grandchildren inherit the indifference of today.
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