Going going...

At school, I studied some of Philip Larkin’s poetry, although I didn’t study this one because it was written after I’d left school! In his poem, ‘Going Going’, he laments the fact that the English countryside is disappearing at an alarming rate. The clever choice of title is significant as one immediately thinks of an auctioneer and his gavel!

 I know that on the outskirts of my own town, more and more of the pretty and precious countryside is being eaten up by housing development. Farmers have realised that they can raise far more money selling off their land. Government has dictated that so many houses have to be built by a certain date. And my little, market town is finding itself absolutely choked with traffic as more and more people move here. No one really considers the strain on all of the services...the schools, the refuse collections, the doctors’ surgeries, to name just a few. No one thinks about the loss of nature! No one. No one even thinks that people need space! 

So, the meadows and the woodlands, where many of us used to play, are disappearing or have disappeared. And Philip Larkin thought it was bad enough in 1972! He would turn in his grave in 2021!

  

 ( Picture taken from the Ladybird book, ‘What to look for in Winter’.)

I remember when I was about 7 years old, we moved to an area of Newton Abbot which was surrounded by stunning woodland. And a stone’s throw from our house was a common...actually not just one common but two! It was the most idyllic place, reached by a gap in a hedge. Once through the gap, it was like entering heaven; you found yourself in a circular common, surrounded by trees and it was a place to rest, relax, picnic, play, have fun and enjoy nature. Birdsong reigned! Gorse bushes, with their vivid blooms, gave the area a joyful feel. Wild flowers played their part all around the edge of the common. The tall trees looked over and protected all below. In the harsh and snowy winter of 1962/1963, the common was jam packed full of footprints. Winter on the common was so pretty. It was equally pretty in the spring, summer and autumn, of course. At the opposite end of the common was another gap where you entered a  second, bigger common, more open but just as lovely! And all was good, calm, quiet and simply beautiful....until the builders moved in. I remember my own tears so well. It was a sad day. However, at least I have my memories of those happy days...and no one can take those away.

( Picture from one of the Ladybird artists, Ronald Lampit)

Philip Larkin’s poem therefore struck a chord with me...and here it is:

Going, Going...

The sense that, beyond the town,

There would always be fields and farms,

Where the village louts could climb

Such trees as were not cut down;

I knew there’d be false alarms

In the papers about old streets

And split level shopping, but something

Have always been left so far;

And when the old part retreats

As the bleak high-risers come

We can always escape in the car.

Things are tougher than we are, just

As earth will always respond

However we mess it about;

Chuck filth in the sea, if you must:

The tides will be clean beyond.—

But what do I feel now? Doubt?

Or age, simply? The crowd

Is young in the M1 cafe;

Their kids are screaming for more—

More houses, more parking allowed,

More caravan sites, more pay.

On the Business Page, a score

Of spectacled grins approve

Some takeover bid that entails

Five per cent profit (and ten

Per cent more in the estuaries): move

Your works to the unspoilt dales

(Grey area grants)! And when

You try to get near the sea

In summer . . .       

It seems, just now,

To be happening so very fast;

Despite all the land left free

For the first time I feel somehow

That it isn’t going to last,

That before I snuff it, the whole

Boiling will be bricked in

Except for the tourist parts—

First slum of Europe: a role

It won’t be hard to win,

With a cast of crooks and tarts.

And that will be England gone,

The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,

The guildhalls, the carved choirs.

There’ll be books; it will linger on

In galleries; but all that remains

For us will be concrete and tyres.

Most things are never meant.

This won’t be, most likely; but greeds

And garbage are too thick-strewn

To be swept up now, or invent

Excuses that make them all needs.

I just think it will happen, soon.

                                                        (Written by Philip Larkin in 1972)