Saturday 6 August 2011

Mellstock

Well, somewhere in the vicinity of Mellstock, at any rate. Near what used to stand for the wild, untameable Egdon Heath.
All tamed now, of course. The dairymaids, wild romantics, furze-cutters, foresters and hedge-workers all gone. Likewise a severe pruning in clergymen - and even clergywomen now. No fear of an ooser as you head across to Rainbarrows. Just the danger - much greater, if more prosaic - of being run over by a hurtling car as you head up Hollow Hill in a dozen layers of Gore-Tex against the Wessex weather.
I can't help feeling that, along with TB, cholera and a high chance of death in child-birth, we've lost something important. Thomas Hardy might understand.

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