Only yesterday, in a rural area under threat of the complete loss of community, which also has some pastures and streams, I did a terrible thing, and having lain awake all night, racked with guilt, I see no choice but to make a full confession.
First, the area to which I refer: the Yorkshire Dales National Park. What is this threat? First, the creeping gentrification so obviously visible at places such as Kirkby Lonsdale. What has this market town become? A fleshpot of upscale restaurants, serving drinks made from fruits grown far away, in places such as Italy and Australia. And a posh Booths supermarket, too. A little distance away, in Casterton, there is a pub that has a speciality premium GIN MENU. What could be more decadent, more destructive of the traditional way of life?
And who is to blame? Cavers, of course: the tens of thousands who pour in every weekend, forever altering this once peaceful region with their uncouth habits and demands, which originate in the nearby megalapolises such as Preston and Morecambe. (To which there is now a bypass, enabling Dales cavers to visit Sainsbury's and so import yet more alien culture, such as mangoes and fresh olives.)
So what did I do? I went caving. Actually, since full disclosure is the order of the day, I went with Badlad (!) and a group of other intruders into the pristine spaces below the earth, including my own impressionable son. And if that were not serious enough, we carried scaffolding poles to a "dig" - a blockage of rocks that Badlad and his friends hope to remove so making an existing system even longer.
If that enterprise succeeds, it can only lead to still more cavers being attracted, like faeces-covered flies, to this vulnerable location. It is doomed, clearly, and I have somehow to deal with the fact that I have hastened its ruin, despoiling the countryside both and above ground. Commmunities face annihiliation. Oh, the shame of it.
Thank you Kenilworth, for opening my eyes.
(That's enough feeble satire - Ed.)
