[Hardy-l] Two Mile Wood

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Just give me some addresses Tony -- names and addresses?  The prob with 
Dorset CC is that that they're mainly interested in making things easier 
for the  tourist industry. And the problem with The THSoc is that anything 
that brings more people into Hardy country the better they like it.  I'm 
sorry you had a shouting match - Tony but that's we all ever get at THSoc 
Council meetings when trying to protest in favour of preserving the 
pristine countryside . What's left of it.  It seems to me so extraordinary 
not to know what a precious legacy this is. Rural England is a "jeweL" as 
one writer expressed it.  It is uniquely beautiful and cannot be replicated 
once destroyed. .

The difficulty  for the THSoc is, I think, being on the spot. The precious 
legacy of English countryside isn't precious to local folk so much as 
tedious when you can't get from A- to- B because of summer traffic.  It was 
the same when I lived in Swanage. The hotels and council members battling 
for a bypass to help push money into that tiny, erstwhile fishing-town 
(bursting at the seams with fishn'chip shops and grimy cafes), and the rest 
of us howling to keep the wetlands intact between the Isle of Purbeck and 
Wareham.  In the end, there was a compromise of sorts and the "by-pass" is 
in fact a small road that circles Wareham and nothing much else - for that 
I suppose we shd be grateful

But from Weymouth to Dorchester it seems almost ludicrous  to build a 
bypass -yet another "Swanage"story in a way for it's not a large town even 
though it is a port-town. And what's wrong with cycling or walking the 
distance -- as Hardy did? (I suppose folk are too much in a rush to walk 
these days). Wdn't it be great if people cd get back into horse-riding so 
that they cd use the bridle-pathways / Weymouth - Dorchester. ?

Yes yes fanciful -- (I do go off into a dream don't I?)

Anyway -- if you can send me names and addresses, Tony,  I'll do my 
militant bit and if anyone on the Forum wd like to put their names to a 
petition just email me and I'll add your name.

Coincidentally, I had a letter (with images) from Bincombe recently which I 
've just published in the latest Hardy Review, Xii--  relating to "The 
Melancholy Hussar:  (not the bypass.)  So readers will be able to view the 
scene very shortly and decide for themselves if they think a bypass (in US 
terms an Interstate)  a suitable item of modern progress.

Cheers
Rosemarie

>As far as I can see this is a lost cause -
>Bw
>
>Tony Fincham.