Dwelling on the past and the supposed bad guys will change nothing in my opinion.
I am struggling to find an area of study that has not relied on history, ancient or contemporary, for guidance and evidence. Shortwalker urges me to join in the debate, yet when I point to an example that my further debate, I am accused of 'slagging off landowners'.
Rather than campaign, I would together with others dig deeper into the reasoning that might assist those, who campaign. Yet, when I find an example that seems to offer some practical opportunity to further debate, the implied criticism of the occupier of the land gets thrown back.
In Humberts Commentaries (published by a firm of chartered surveyors), the Earl of March
and Kinrara, Who, with his father the 9th Duke of Richmond owns the 12,000-acre Goodwood Estate in West Sussex, had a tip for fellow
landowners:
We deliberately created a Country Park under the Countryside Act on 60 acres of poor-quality land on the top of the Downs. It is an open area
where people can park their cars, play games with their children, picnic and exercise their dogs. There is no charge for admission, but it gives
us the opportunity to say: ‘You can’t go there, but you can go to the Country Park'.
Just to get on the nerves of those, who still 'knuckle ye forhead' to lords etc, that clutter political scene with archaic notions.
A concise, cogently argued case might enthuse the larger group to push for greater access, similar to what we have in Scotland. Dwelling on the past
The political force that created Scotland's 2003 Land Reform Act was very much fueled by ancient history and some forgotten contemporary history was very much in evidence 15 years ago that played a part in modelling the improvements in access that led to the freedom of access enjoyed there.
Slow ways have been mentioned as a way forward, those Slow Ways that cannot be seen on a map are what landowners fear, they try to make little of them, by saying much the same as the Earl of March said in the above quote.
What have we gained from this topic, recognition of the 'Devonian Disease'? It is recognised in Suffolk and lesions caused by that infection can be seen in Shropshire. A Bit like calling a cancer 'Hodkinson's Lymphoma' something that has spread alot further than someone call Hodgkinson, yet history has left a name there that allows people to put a name to a wealth of understanding.
Don't fret Slowalker, I'll get accused of something and it will probably have nothing to do with the hidden meanings I would love for others to pick up.
'From a wild frontier to promised land' there is a lot more to that title than meets the eye, the more I learn from the countryside I walk the more I realise sharing dreams can open up the promised land.