I grew up in a park. Regent’s Park.
A smaller version of Hyde Park that has provided the weary people of London
with a beautiful green place to go for a spot of fresh air, a walk among trees,
and for the more energetic, a game of rugger on the fields between the lake and
the Zoo since it was opened to the hoi
polloi in 1835.
That’s what parks do. It’s what
they’re about. What they’ve always been about, ever since Julius Caesar
bequeathed his private gardens to the people of Rome to “walk abroad and
recreate” themselves. The very word “park” for a great many people means
‘playground’.
And so it is for the many who flock
to the New Forest National Park every summer. Indeed, many treat it much the
same as any other park they might visit of a weekend. Residents bracing
themselves for the onslaught are told that tourism brings “much needed revenue”
to the area. Hordes descend on Forest fords, paddling, eating ice-cream,
throwing soiled nappies in the bracken, and parking on any unprotected verge, but
where all the dosh they deposit actually lands up is hard to gauge. Apart from
a few pubs and caravan sites raking it in when the Forest is in season (so to
speak), I haven’t noticed my council tax bill getting any lower - or employment
opportunities in the area getting any better because of it.
Some organisations seem to do well,
though. Possibly the most noticeable feature of the open arms policy for
tourism in the New Forest are the large competitive cycling events that run
year round. Most notorious of these is the New Forest “Wiggle” - a giggly name
for an aggressive, “ride” in which literally thousands of cyclists pay upwards
of £30 each to event organisers to descend on Forest roads in large groups,
defying anyone to overtake, and literally annexing vast swathes of the place
for days at a time. It’s effectively a weekend curfew for residents, many of
whom opt to hide in their houses rather than risk venturing out for anything
other than an emergency.
Nobody minds anything... as long as
there’s not too much of it. Despite the occasional protest along event routes,
locals are not quite at the pitchforks and torches stage as yet, but these
massive events have begun to test local patience and it’s not hard to see why.
There is an appreciable difference between the weekend family on push-bikes
enjoying a much-needed lungfull of green air, and swarms of riders, heads down
on £thousands worth of performance bikes playing Bradley Wiggins, and seemingly
more interested in getting around a course in record time than admiring their
surroundings.
Of course, one of the main reasons
the Forest looks so nice and inviting to them as they pedal about in their
lycra, is thanks to the ancient system of Commoning - turning out ponies and
other stock on the commons to graze. This keeps the whole thing looking trim
and pretty. Thing is though, those pretty ponies all belong to somebody, and
that somebody has to round them up every now and again to check them over,
check their health, and judge whether or not they’re going to make it safely
through the winter – otherwise we could have some very tourist unfriendly sights like emaciated,
elderly animals shivering and dying by the roadside. Little wonder then that
local people were disgusted – and furious - when it emerged that one of these
vital roundups (drifts) was actually cancelled last year...to make way for a cycle event. Hardly surprising then, that many
are now calling for an end to these races altogether.
Of course, the cycle clubs are
anxious to refute that any of these events are
races, calling them instead “rides” or “wiggles” or “sportives”. Whatever
organisers may claim though, it seems clear that many of the participants have
other ideas. Having read some of the comments on their Facebook pages in which
they enthuse about how they achieved their “best time ever” on some ‘ride’ or
other, I am minded of Michael Palin in the Monty Python parrot sketch, eyes
shifting left and right as he tries to convince customer John Cleese that in
spite of the fact the bird is clearly dead and nailed to its perch, it’s merely
“resting”.
A little humility would probably go
a long way to ameliorate tensions. In all too many cases, the attitude of those
who misuse the Forest tends to be one of bewildered entitlement when
challenged. The woman caught throwing nappies into the undergrowth, and hurling stones at a pony who had wandered too near her family’s picnic - rejoined that the
animal “shouldn’t be here”. The family turning what was left of meagre winter
grazing into a massive spirograph with their mountain bike tyres simply pleaded
that “nobody told” them not to. The couple with the large dog snapping at the
pregnant mare on the road by the High Corner Inn “didn’t know” they should keep
it on a lead and under control.
“We didn’t know”, “Nobody told us”,
“nobody said...”
One is forced to wonder if, had the
New Forest been designated a National Wildlife Conservation Area instead of a
National ‘Park’, people might have more of an idea of the actual importance of
the place, and rather more of a handle on how to handle themselves – and their
dogs – when visiting.
It seems pretty clear then that
education is what’s needed, and education at grass roots level. Education that
reminds us all that to enjoy places like the New Forest is not a right, it’s a
privilege, and with privilege comes responsibility. It is incumbent upon those
who profit by, and promote tourism to the New Forest to ensure that the
visitors they encourage arrive armed with a certain amount of knowledge, and
that knowledge needs to be imparted and implanted in our city schools. Leaflets
in Forest pubs and at information points in car parks can only do so much. By
the time people get here, in many cases, it’s already too late.
Yes, I grew up in London; I lived in a park and went to school in a wood - St John’s Wood, but thanks to my schooling, by the time I first visited the countryside, I already knew the Country Code.
It’s time to put it back on the
National Curriculum.
E. A. Wyndham Blake © 2014
Posted by Emma Blake at 13:55
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