Maple Field

 The National desire,  fever even,  for cheap food can be traced back to the repeal oCorn Laws in 1846 when land owners and farmers were forced to sacrifice agricultural protection for the sake of cheap food. The corn laws,  seen and experienced by the working class, as an arisocratic conspiracy to redistribute income away from the urban poor and towards the rural wealthy, and of course skipping over the rural chopsticks , as if they weren’t even there. The middle class manufacturers even regarded the corn laws as raising the cost of the production, since high food prices necessitated higher wages. The repeal of the corn laws in 1846 established free trade as a powerful cultural symbol of British politics from then until now,   all fresh faced with its progress and democracy  –   yeah right. Free trade became a distinguishing characteristic of British national identity. Cheap food bias was reinforced during the depression of the 1920s and 1930s when unemployment was widespread,  then followed by the privations of the Second World War and rationing up until 1954  –   austerity and me aged 4. And of course the urban Britain sought refuge in the quaint, lovely, countryside described by Wordsworth, Hardy and Coleridge,  while expecting and needing cheaper food against the tragically low wages,  from an old fashioned landscape stultified and pickled,   hemmed- in from outright production of the variety of fresh food we all nee  –   the Parish of Martin is down to four cereal crops being barley, wheat, oil seed and oats plus grass which is unused ,or if it is used, it is for Leisure activities with horses. Rural preservation found fertile cultural slopes on which to develop;   the CPRE, the National Trust and the YHA ,all mining the deep seams of urban disquiet and dense populations  –   the land was to be preserved, production came second  –   no huts, no water bowsers and above all no people please, we want peace and quiet and cheap food  –   the one phase severely contradicting the other .