In memoriam Robert Graves…

Of Mirage and Echo

      “To love beyond infinity,”

My godhead said to me,

      “Not even to divinity

Is granted – nor shall be.”

      She searched through her inventory

Of mortals quick and dead;

      “None such in any century

Are listed here,” she said.

      “Except…” – and here her finger traced

The heartbreaks and the lies,

      The trusts and promises erased,

The bluffs of compromise –

      “Except there is a partnership

Outlasting words and wars,

      Exceeding clear the farthest tip

Of miracles or stars:

      “A truth of perfect unity,

A heart and soul that fly,

      That soar beyond eternity:

That is… but you and I.”

O may my heart’s truth/Still be sung…

I love frosty mornings (and snowy ones); and always have. Not for their slipperiness, of course – which can be ameliorated, a little, by the judicious use of my constant companion of a walking stick; or advanced driving (which can soon be demolished by a thoughtless tailgater…) – but for the extended ‘golden hour’ of photographer’s (de)light; and for the lethargy (or desperate hunger) of animals usually too wary to approach.

Today’s late, bright, crisp dawn heralded such an “hour” – although there wasn’t much joy in scrubbing and scraping the overnight frozen rain from opaque car windows (especially full of a stinking winter’s cold…!) – a ravenous squirrel rewarding my patience and determination, once in Stratford, by leaving its arboreal haven to munch and scavenge just a few feet from my muddy boots; and a huddled heron priesting the banks of the Avon, by Holy Trinity, in the winged willow above my head – almost a museum exhibit in its patient meditation (a wicked glint in its eye demonstrating its true purpose: angled, as it was, with that spear-like beak, towards the still fast-flowing river…).

As I wandered opposite, along the Rec, a while later, the sun now creeping over my shoulder, the grey heron was still there: quizzically gazing at a fellow busily chattering into his mobile phone – as if to ask why his presence wasn’t companionship enough… – the only birds caring to exercise in flight being swans, barking in time with their beating wings; and raucous gulls, fighting over the scraps of bread from rare pilgrims, like myself.

Poem in October [excerpt]
Dylan Thomas

      It was my thirtieth year to heaven

Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood

  And the mussel pooled and the heron

  Priested shore

  The morning beckon

With water praying and call of seagull and rook

And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall   

  Myself to set foot

  That second

  In the still sleeping town and set forth.

I could hear Thomas’s almost accentless Welsh-style lilt run, riverlike and warming, through my sunstruck mind, as I “walked abroad in a shower of all my days” – perfect music: especially for moving “Through the parables/Of sun light” on a morning I could never forget; his singing words so much more melodic than mine.

PS: I’ve always had a soft spot for badgers – and have been glad that they have played a small, but significant, part in defending our local heritage against development. However, I’d have invested in a few, if I’d known they were worth over £4,000 each…?! (Puttocks.)

An open letter to Stratford-upon-Avon Herald…

Sir: On Wednesday night (8 January 2013), after over 360 letters of objection had been sent to the district council, hundreds of Tysoe residents then turned out, in the rain, to support their representatives at a meeting of the council’s Planning Committee (East) in a packed Kineton High School; and to hear, after a couple of hours debate, that their arguments for local heritage, suitability and sustainability had been listened to, and understood; and that the committee were voting unanimously against a proposed development of 80 urban-style houses on the edge of the village.

80 may not sound too big a number, when compared to other sites in the district; but, for Middle and Upper Tysoe, it would have represented an increase in houses of over 20%, and a population increase of around 30%.

The following morning (Thursday, 9 January 2013), Nadhim Zahawi – who, of course, has a house in Tysoe – warned of the “Coalition’s ‘legacy’ of rural harm” in the Daily Telegraph. I believe his actions could not have been better timed, nor his opinions better expressed. And, although our MP could not attend, last night, he has been supportive, throughout; and his condemnation, in these pages, of “rapacious developers” has, in large part, been driven by the quiet battle being fought here. I therefore congratulate him (and I am a member of the Labour Party) for his understanding and representation of both the issues and his constituents.

Although I agree in principle with what he has said, I believe that the current format of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is, in reality and practice, strong enough when defending against the corporate greed of those, such as Gladman Developments, who show no local understanding or sympathy. And this was clearly demonstrated, last night, on a local government level; and has been proven, without doubt, by the hard work of the members of the Tysoe Residents (Neighbourhood Planning) Group, under local resident, Keith Risk; allied with the staunch work of Tysoe Parish Council, led by Mark Sewell.

And even if Eric Pickles does finally impose – as our local councillor, Gillian Roache has stated: “urban grain more suited to Peckham” – on our tiny, rural community, against English Heritage’s objection, and the council’s views and decisions – that is only because localism, as conceived by this Government, was obviously stillborn.

What is needed is for national government to help – rather than constantly hinder and harrow – local government: who have been trapped by national policy and hollow words, when it comes to localism and David Cameron’s purported Big Society. What is needed is for Government to stop outsourcing their duties and responsibilities. Please stop blaming Stratford District Council: they are not ignoring their constituents; they totally understand the issues – as Wednesday’s planning committee proved – and are trying, as demonstrated by their recent actions, to make the best of a lose-lose situation imposed from above.

“Where are those who will stand up for Stratford?” asked one of your letters, this week. Well, some of them are on the front page, in Preston Witts’ article. Others are working quietly, but effectively, in local parishes. If all those who kept complaining to your newspaper mobilized as the residents of Tysoe have, and turned their hundreds of words into hundreds of hours of action and all-night graft, then maybe there wouldn’t be the need for such a question.

I know this will inflame many of your readers (and probably members of my own party: with its obvious echoes of right-wing work ethic). But I make no apology. Instead of moaning, Tysoe got off its collective backside; educated itself thoroughly in the relevant national planning laws; and fought – and marketed – a memorable and strategic battle. We may not yet have won the war; but I do feel we have shown the way forward; and that our actions have spoken much, much louder than those who simply resort to words.

Think different…

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently – they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

– Steve Jobs

“Think different” was Apple’s slogan for a long time; and, those of us fighting Gladman’s proposed development on Oxhill Road did exactly that. Because we had to. And thus won the first battle of what may yet be a protracted war. (Again, because we had to.)

Last night, the district council’s Planning Committee (East) voted unanimously against the request for outline planning permission; and, in doing so, cited reasons almost identical to those we had listed in our briefing paper to them.

As far as I know, nothing like this has ever been produced before. But, when you are limited to six minutes of speech at such a meeting (three for the Parish Council – the wonderful Mark Sewell – and three for any objectors – in this case, the magnificent Keith Risk, of the Tysoe Residents (Neighbourhood Planning) Group; flanked by resident experts Professor John Hunter, OBE, and Dr Michael Sanderson), surely common-sense would dictate that you detail your arguments in some way or other? One that is attractive, readable, and meshed deeply with the planning regulations the committee are to be reliant on? (And not just common-sense, neither. Think of this from a marketing perspective – or even from a lobbyist’s point of view – and suddenly it’s not such a difficult thing to justify. Obvious, really. Just – because it’s never been done before – bloody hard work. I’ve never seen a blank canvas quite as expansive and empty….)

There are no rules when it comes to campaigning. I think they have to be broken, and remade anew, every time – especially as each campaign is different, too. However, we did rely on some – those “planning regulations”, mentioned above – by using the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), and throwing it back in the faces of those who would use it to justify development at any cost (or profit); but without considering that, at the heart of the NPPF, is a presumption in favour, only of sustainable development: “which should be seen as a golden thread running through both plan-making and decision-taking”.

Not so crazy, then. Just a little, as our American cousins say, “left-field”.

Have we changed the world, though? Well, the jury, I’m afraid, is still out on that one….

Water, water, every where…

With the floods trickling through Tysoe, last weekend, but overwhelming Oxhill (enough, so village rumour states, to transform the old treatment plant into a mere sieve – and causing the local water company to deploy two boxy, dark green machines, I presume in its stead: appearing, like cuboid alien spacecraft, out of the blue – and then dropped into it…), it would seem a difficult argument to make that “there is sufficient capacity” with regards to local drainage, and that dumping several hectares of concrete and tarmac on a field of ridge-and-furrow next to Oxhill Road is therefore “a low risk”.

It would also seem an odd time to cut jobs from the Environment Agency – partly responsible for building, maintaining and controlling flood defences – and then claim (as has the PM) that a reduced budget for these is actually an increase.

Villagers have long known – from experience, rather than desktop-bound “hydraulic modelling” – how devastatingly the run-off from local storms distributes itself: oozing out of well-maintained drainage ditches, to pool in local fields, threatening our farmers’ livelihoods; banishing all but the foolhardy, and those in 4x4s (not a mutually exclusive pairing), from our narrow, winding, and occasionally sinking lanes; and even the developer’s own engineers admit that the local “soils are poorly draining and therefore have a low capacity to absorb excess winter rainfall…”.

Additionally, it had already been revealed – before said developers came along – that the treatment plant was at its maximum capacity – which means that any storm discharge goes straight into Wagtail Brook, bypassing any treatment; and only a small proportion of sewage gets processed.

So where does this parallel effrontery – from both government and commerce (again, not a mutually exclusive pairing) – originate: that produces such barefaced assertions?

The easy answer, I believe, is greed. All a business, based over 100 miles away, cares for, is badly-needed profit. “Sustainability” is a mere buzzword; damage to the environment (local and global), and people’s lives, not even distant thoughts, mere wisps, or glimmers; not even a faint electric impulse weakly echoing around their little grey cells.

Ours is a society now based on self, on solipsism. The only reason to (pretend to) care for someone, to befriend them, is if they can improve your life. They can then be disposed of – as the land will be to those who think Peckham-style “urban grain” would look nice tacked on to a rural village of over 1000 years standing (rather than the integrated medieval field) – along with any mere wisps or glimmers of empathy, of altruism, or of the greater good. Of hope.

The only glimmer I can currently see is one of Tysoe’s rare street-lamps, reflecting in a pool of flood-water.