As I was stepping out of the door on some miserable errand the real world enforces much too often the latest Dartmoor Magazine was sitting in the hallway, still warm from posties hand.
Remember the days you would wave to the postie on crisp cold mornings, the shared bond of the early risers. Experiencing the day before the sights, sounds and air had been processed by millions of others, used up in the process, stale long before rush-hour. A new day, just for you and the postie. The milkman long since consigned to fading memory awaits the heritage industry to revive him in nostalgic adverts, postie will follow.
Now the early morning post has disappeared. The lie was they were getting rid of the second postal delivery of the day. More properly they were simply getting rid of the first post, now the mail arrives pretty much when it likes, 10am to 2pm is postie primetime.
Now postie is a faceless someone, an ever changing someone I no longer recognise. So it is with the dustmen, must be 20 years since the dustman was a regular enough face to have a chat with. Now it is just another stranger leaping from a huge machine wheeling a plastic bin large enough to hold a body to the back of the cart where the contents are forcibly hurled. Now the only reason to converse with the dustman is when you have made some sort of error in apportioning the detritus. Paper where plastic should go, the system grinds to a halt, dustmen perplexed, more than his jobs worth, no possible way can a recycling bin intended for plastic be moved when it contains a bit of stray paper. The dustman as eco-warrior saving the planet by refusing to collect rubbish.
The human equation no longer adds up, the world is increasingly built on machine scale, we are at best cogs, at worse lubricant for the system.
Life.
Dartmoor magazine would be waiting for me when I got back, Autumn addition of the quarterly magazine, the cover image invites you to wander the landscape, which I do mentally as my body guides me through the days chores.
The internet is great, but the physicality of glossy A4 has to be experienced from time to time and this is the time and place for me, my only magazine subscription.
This year there has been an interesting series about Princetown Prison and this issue deals with Princetown more generally.
It reports on a reworking of Sherlock Holmes, which is part of an autumnal TV series “Tourist Trail” and how tourists relate to a literary landscape. Seems this was recorded in mid-June and they had authentic mist and drizzle.
Although the magazine is Dartmoor focused, it has so many starting points for walking themes and different thinking between the lines, it is about everywhere. Anton Coaker, has a regular column as a traditional hill farmer, he has a great chatty style and is thought provoking. Anton has a beard you just have to stand and admire, its not one of those celebrity efforts, nor the designer stubble which is harder work than shaving. His beard is the real deal, it has the appearance of being hacked with a pair of garden shears from time to time when more dinner is finding its way into the undergrowth than the mouth. It is a statement of individual freedom so few of us possess and fewer still dare exercise. More power to your chin Anton.
This quarter he talks about farm gates. Not something I have really given much thought too over the years, other than how to get through them efficiently and securing them afterwards. I knew reading it was going to cause trouble. Sure enough, I was soon on the internet trying to plot walks that would encompass potentially interesting farm gates, photographic images forming in my head. Now I am sitting here, cursing inwardly, wondering how many great farm gates I have literally let through my hands without giving them proper acknowledgement.
My neglect of this previously unconsidered element has been brought home by a search of my photo archive. There is one legitimate wooden farm gate image. It was a series of gates which must have been some sort of animal pen. The gate was in an advanced state of decay with a sign requesting its closure, the irony being the only reason for the image.
Just to give a quick plug to one of the sites which rekindled my interest in Dartmoor as a walking location. These gates appear here.
The gate was really on its last legs, probably replaced now or given it had no real purpose perhaps just a pile of wood. There is one other gate image on a roll of film that has lain undeveloped for a decade or more. Again on Dartmoor, it was a garden gate at the kennels which housed the local pack near Pew Tor. That has been replaced, I saw the new gate a few years ago.
I congratulate anyone that can just let these things pass through their minds without undue concern, normal, well adjusted types. By this I do not mean the lumps that think a good time is watching EastEnders then talking about it as if it was (a) real (b) mattered even if it was real. These people are mal-adjusted in a special sort of way, the fact there are more of them just means it takes longer to come to the realisation it is not normal. No, I am speak of the people that can read about regional variations in gate design, discover there is previously unrealised function in various forms and after a nod of the head, perhaps a “that’s interesting” move onto more important things in life having maintained a proper perspective.
I simply fail the test, perspective distorted, this farm gate revelation rates right up there with just about anything the nightly news is going to offer (if I listened to it).
Many years ago there was an episode of The Time Team, they were digging up a site which made no sense. It was a cornucopia of treasures without rhyme or reason. Experts were puzzled, but the suspicion mounted, these were treasures plundered at some point, maybe recently. Experts asked to come in validate the goodies which could then be sold for healthy money.
Things just did not add up, the finds were oddly distributed along the time line. Did the Romans really stick their coins back together with glue?
A bit of barbed wire ran under an ancient sword, the sword was genuine, so was the barbed wire, but in the scheme of things barbed wire does not run underneath ancient swords. The crew had an expert in all things barbed-wire to hand. This was heavenly news, barbed wire can be dated and geographically located with varying degrees of accuracy as long as you have the right expert to hand. However ludicrous you can find an expert, a life affirming and life changing moment.
The only problem with this magazine subscription is its arrival creates a Pavlovian response. 365 odd square miles of wilderness, a lifetime of exploration. I will never be a giant of the Dartmoor landscape, history will not remember me like it does William Crossing. The problem is I could still end up with a massive pile of mouse chewed paper representative of my life’s work which is only considered so much fire lighting material.
How much life do you apportion to your interests and in what order, time can only be spent once.
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