In Praise of Flat Fen Country
In a first ever contribution to the Crier, long -time fen-dweller Angela Nesbit defends the country -side she grew up in.
I AM SO OFTEN STRUCK BY NEGATIVE DESCRIPTIONS of flat fen country. OK, Ophir, (November Crier) yours was a humorous piece, about a boring bloke called Cliff - &All Cliff had to master, then, was the utter monotony of the flatlands& and his favourite poet declares "Nothing, but flat fens there I could see." But it's fairly common to hear some such comments for real: "So flat", people say miserably.
I grew up on marshland near the sea in Norfolk. If you dug a hole 3 feet deep
it filled with water. I supposed all the world was like this, a thin crust of
land with water just below. At 5 years old I wondered what those things called
hills might be like and drew pictures of cows standing at crazy angles on a
rounded hump, there being not the slightest demonstration of this phenomenon
nearby, and no TV transmitter then to show me.
At 8 years old we sailed on planks of wood down the deep ditches (we could swim), caught sticklebacks and the odd newt in our bare hands, played on the river mud at low tide, made huts in the long grass and reeds. "Be home before sunset" was the iron rule from the protective parents, the sun setting slowly over the marshes to the west.
I was eleven when I saw my first real hills on a brief visit to the Cotswolds. For a while as an adult, hills fascinated me, the ups and downs, and the interesting rocky bits the farmers couldn't plough... until I lived among them in Scotland. In summer the sun would often hide behind them half the day, in winter maybe never hit the ground. They blocked your view, got between you and that sky, stifled the fresh breeze in summer, cosseted the frost in winter.
In recent years I have reverted, as one does. No space is too big, no land too
flat, too empty for me. A shack out on a shingle bank by open marshes would
suit me fine, struck by the first and last rays of the sun.
Am I the only one who loves flat open land, open to sunrise and sunset, the marshes, water shining on long dykes and waterways, the quality of light and great panoramic skies? Stand up and be counted those who love these landscapes, and pity those who see only monotony there.