Your Village and Mine. By C. H. Gardiner. (Faber and
Faber. 7s. 6d.) Fart too much rural planning is based on theory and designed by people who have no working knowledge of our countryside. Sudi a charge cannot be made against the suggestions here put forward by Mr. Gardiner. He is a countryman (of the West Country), and, although he calls himself a "layman," it is dear that his work is of a kind that makes him closely familiar with most aspects of rural life, from farming to religion, and from the work of ruts!
councils to the problems of village sanitation. Moreover, he has humour and knows a good country tale when he hears it. His book begins with a brief view of the English village as it was ; goes on to giVe a first-hand picture of it as it is today (or was before the war); and conc'udes with a most reasonable plea for certain changes which shall make the English village once again " the nursery and the life blood of the nation."
If anything, Mr. Gardiner is perhaps inclined to rate the village amenities of today too high ; certainly it is still far from true in EaSt Anglia, for instance, that the collection of refuse is prevalent in most villages ; and his generous attitude towards country 'bus services is by no means generally merited. Nor is it true, by and large, that the increased attention to agriculture in wartime has resulted in a revival of the farm hand's " pride of craft." As a chief reception officer, however, he has some pertinent things to say about the effects of evacuation ; and it is good to hear him plead for the post-war return of a regional system of broadcasting. In fact, Mr. Gardiner has many salutary things to say ; and the implication of most of them is that what is needed most of all, in every branch of rural planning, is a more abundant sense of responsibility towards the land and those who live by it.
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