Transcript Crap Towns Vs. The King’s England

The King’s England (1941)
vs. Crap Towns (2003)
Introduction to ‘Suffolk’, from The
King’s England (1941) by Arthur Mee
If the traveller feels in Suffolk that it is a country a little apart, not meeting many
other travellers there, he has the consolation that it is a country little spoiled –
and with a people of whom that also might be said, for they are a naturally
friendly folk, full of helpfulness, good neighbourliness, and courtesy.
The great Motor Age that has shattered so much loveliness in England’s
countryside has not destroyed the simple beauty of these eastern villages. They
remain as they have been for generation after generation, with the glory of their
open fields, their wide landscapes enriched by trees, lovely commons golden
with gorse, hedgerows filled with loosestrife, and wild flowers in profusion
everywhere.
The churchyards are often like a garden; we have seen them full of flowers. We
have seen fields massed purple with wild orchids, and others massed with
cowslips. We have sat in church after church in Suffolk listening to the
nightingale singing in the churchyard, and a hundred times we have seen the
sight that grows rarer and rarer year after year as we move about England, the
ploughman on the skyline, with the noble Suffolk Punches drawing the plough. It
cannot be said that Suffolk has her cattle on a thousand hills, but her cattle and
her sheep fill the plain.
Introduction to ‘Hull’,
from Crap Towns (2003)
THE city of Hull, isolated from the rest of the
country by the Humber estuary, has had more than
its fair share of social deprivation and tragedy.
It suffered terribly during World War II and a large
proportion of its industries have since collapsed.
Unemployment rates are high, as are crime and
heroin addiction levels.
It is, however, increasingly successful, with a busy
shopping and cultural centre and it contains a large,
thriving student population.
How can I describe Hull? Take a prosperous and thriving town, a gem of the
North East, with a rich maritime industry. Sprinkle it generously with Luftwaffe
bombs for a few years until it's heart is a gutted shell. Then kill off its seagoing
heritage and plunge its young men and women into generations of souldestroying unemployment. Then let a bunch of lunatic architects loose in the
1960s and 1970s and apply gallons of concrete.
Hull. What a hole...The streets act as wind tunnels and litter and dogs'
messes lie upon the pavements as numerous as grains of sand on a beach.
I'd seen teenage mums before, but I seriously thought for the first day
or two that older sisters in Hull were really nice and helpful for taking their little
brothers and sisters out in prams like that.
There are loads of fish and chip shops, but no fish. Any fish that are
brought in by the pathetic fleet of stubborn fishermen are immediately shipped
off, they are too valuable for the good people of Hull.
The silent threat of violence hangs in the air, along with the smell from
the chocolate factory. Chocolate factories, by the way, don't smell of chocolate,
they smell of death. If the wind comes from the South East it brings the smell of
Grimsby docks - enough said. If it comes from the other direction it brings the
smell of the tanning factory... rotting carcasses and rancid flesh.
Hull did teach me one lesson. No matter what happens to me in life,
no matter where I live, or how bad things are, I will know that it can never, ever
be as bad as living in Hull.
Finlay Coutts-Britton.