When I was growing up, if a door was left open in our house, one of us would shout, ‘Were you born in a barn?’
If my mother was the culprit, she’d reply, ‘Aye, I was.’
Where my dad’s family were city dwellers, my mum’s were country folk. Her father was a ploughman and one of her sisters worked as a farm inspector before marrying into the farming life. Most childhood holidays were spent on my aunt’s farm. My sister and I are veterans when it comes to picking up farmyard injuries and scars – from trying to pole vault hay bales to messing around with milk churn trolleys. By the time I was a teenager, my arm had been up the rear end of a sheep to save an unborn lamb, and I’d helped drag a new-born calf from its mother using a rope and a thick stick. But that was just dipping toes in. I’m a townie … I think. Cause, having lived on two farms and in the middle of a banana plantation, I’m not sure where the boundaries of definition lie.
Townies
I do know I can’t be doing with people who move from urban areas to rural communities then moan about the noise of farming machinery or agricultural whiffs etc. They don’t want to live in the real countryside, they want to live in the Disney version of it, the one created in their heads. In those cases, I’m on the side of anyone bemoaning ‘Townies don’t understand the countryside.’
Andy and I know from writing guides which help people explore off-the-beaten-track parts of Europe there are some who, although they love being in the countryside, can grumble at the reality of what they find there. In the Canary Islands, it might be the conditions in which farmers keep their dogs, often abandoned for hours in messy makeshift pens in ravines.
Once, while sussing out potential accommodation, we knew there was going to be issues at a rural hotel on Gran Canaria where a rooster with appalling timekeeping loudly announced dawn a couple of hours too early right outside the bedrooms. Andy pre-empted negative feedback with a line about the natural sounds of country living, subliminally suggesting anyone who complained might not be suited to spending time in the countryside. As far as we know, nobody ever did … or the rooster died.
But I’ve never been a blindly-follow-one-side-or-another sort of person. The same experience of writing for people who explore destinations by walking across them has also taught me the majority have and show the greatest respect for the countryside.
A year after we helped introduce a walking holiday in Peneda-Gerês National Park in Portugal, we returned. An accommodation owner we worked with told us how pleased they were with the increase in custom. Most locals were. However, one man had moaned about these visitors dropping litter. The owner instantly slapped him down, pointing out the culprits he’d witnessed tossing rubbish from their cars were locals, including the person doing the complaining. Generally speaking, experienced walkers don’t litter.
Thankfully, litter isn’t a great problem in the country lanes around us in Somerset, but it exists – usually soft drinks cans and snack wrappers. These lanes are mainly used by locals, so…
And Country Folk
Having lived in England’s rural South West for four years, I’ve noticed how phrases like ‘townies don’t understand’ can be used to deflect from activities that aren’t always in the best interests of the countryside. It is a typical social media technique. It’s also often hypocritical bull – i.e. when used to justify pheasant shoots for rich urbanites. What’s not only disrespectful but is highly dangerous is not stopping shooting when walkers pass between the firing line and the target, as happened to us on a public right of way. If these guys were on a military range, there would be hell to pay for discharging a weapon when there was someone in the firing line. They wouldn’t do it a second time, that’s for sure. Even if they were ‘townies’ who didn’t know any better, the ones organising the shoot and taking their money weren’t.
Then there’s foxhunting. When a fox devastated the henhouse, my cousin would understandably want it dead. One time, I accompanied him on an early morning jaunt across the field to hunt down a hen killer. We did spot the fox, but it was too far away to shoot. I was relieved to see it trot off. But I knew and accepted why he had to kill it. It didn’t involve turning hunting a fox into theatre.
A couple of hours later and this path was closed because of wildfire.
On Bute, our walk to a swing at a viewpoint was almost abandoned because of a wildfire. When it broke out, those who voiced their concerns on social media were dismissed as ‘townies who don’t understand country ways’ – it was controlled agricultural burning. Damn right I don’t understand starting fires when there are official warnings against doing so during a spell of warm, dry weather. That’s just stupid. Predictably, the fire quickly became out of control and one of the most beautiful parts of the Isle of Bute was in danger of being devastated because a farmer knew better. Thankfully, the fire was brought under control, but not until eight hectares were destroyed. It’s not the first time I’ve witnessed the countryside razed due to unauthorised agricultural fires.
As we walked to the viewpoint on Bute, we met an exhausted forestry worker who’d only managed a couple of hours sleep between tackling the fire the ‘townies’ were making an unnecessary fuss about. It wasn’t ‘townies’ he was furious with. It can be easy to forget that many people in numerous occupations other than farming have a stake in the countryside.
Growing up on Bute, we didn’t see a border where the town merged into the countryside. The great outdoors was our playground. It belonged to no one. It belonged to everyone. Forget smokescreen labels, the true division is between those who respect the countryside and those who don’t.
