Townies

[Pepper&Bess]

I keep chickens in my yard. Had a new set of people moved in nextdoor ( there House is 40 foot away ) and they come knocking asking if I can keep the chickens quite? As they don't like the noise.

Well me being me just said to them if you move to the country there are more noises then my chickens.

 

Bloody townies.

 

Go back to the smoke.

[Gimlet]

There's another type of townie, the militant the channel 4 property show migrants who've come to live the dream. They don't so much complain about the unexpected impact of farming, as create an adverse impact of their own. They festoon their houses in high power security lights and hold loud parties every time a child, friend, freinds mother, friends mother's dog etc has a birthday. They think that because their nearsest neighbour is 150 yds away and they can see fields through the window they're somewhere wild and remote.

And this points to the real problem: they do not see the countryside as a place where food is produced and where wild creatures live. For them the countryside is a public amenity and a playground where agriculture gets in the way. It is somewhere to play with a toy, go jogging (head down, i-pod in ears), ride their bikes, and generally befoul with litter and dog ****. They know nothing about farming or wildlife. They couldn't tell the difference between a badger and a weasel, milk comes in plastic bottles, vegetables come from Kenya and field gateways are parking spaces. That farm would make a great golf course, that wood a bike park, and that grazing land a free facility for dog fowling.

They know everything about rights but nothing about the responsibility of using rights of way. There is no question of educating them because they have no comprehension of an existing way of life into which they need to fit. For them farmland is 'open space', an extension of the town parks they left behind and to which they have right of access because they've paid their taxes. And because of their sheer numbers and electoral importance any government will fashion legislation to support their demands over the dwindling population of farmers and genuine country people. And this is not a dig at specific unnamed people, there are whole villages of them here.

[henry d]

"Get orff moy laand."

 

[Ratman2]

I always tell people who complain about what the farmers are doing............The countryside is a factory without a roof.

[smokinggun]

There was a letter in my local paper recently from a woman complaining that her barbecue was ruined because the farmer next door started spreading manure on the land and the smell was to much, she said she thought the farmer should letter everyone in the area in advance to warn them,what did she think would happen when she bought the house As others have said its great to see the combines etc harvesting I love seeing it as i drive home.

[Guest cookoff013]

yeah, love seeing farmers busy at work, would never ever cause any difficulties for them earning there bread.

 

good to see lots of gamebirds out and about, shows money and people are in the contryside.

[Gimlet]

They were disc rolling here last night til about 3:00 am. And the ground is very flinty. Bet that went down well.

[Peskyfoxs]

I remember coming across one of the field abouts to be cut for hay ... there was a couple with a kid who deicded to climb over the wall and then (i assume to find a soft spot) had put there massive picnic blanket in about 6 different places completely flattening the grass ... when I asked what they were doing they said they thought you could just climb into a field for a picnic as you can't damage grass.

 

Another involved a women who let her dog chase sheep on a fell, when asked why she replied Fido was just playing with the wild sheep !! (thought they didn't belong to anyone)

[escortmagnum999]

U can't beat the sounds and smells of the countryside! A lot of townie types have moved into my village, they try to take over instantly. One of them judged the show photography last year and said 'we can't accept your pics of the hounds because hunting is illegal'! Not a clue comes to mind!

[Breastman]

Theres a townie **** next to the club where i do most of my PSG shooting. The club has been there for at least 50 years that i know of and she moved into the one house within 500m about 3 years ago. Fancy, moving next to a gun club and there being the sound of gun fire on an evening and weekend, SHOCK HORROR(!) Now we have to finish on the outdoor ranges by 2pm

[MM]

funny how most of the people moaning about "us townies" live in places ending in '......shire!' do you think the local baker will buy your 300 acres of wheat? next time your leg falls off, go see the local witch doctor, rather than comming to our major A&E. Its called moving forward. would anybody object if i bought a big house in the country? i wouldnt mind if ypu bumpkins come and live here.

[lxtav]

Had a call about 10 years ago at the station when I was working nightshift from a householder who wanted us to go up to the field behind his house and tell the farmer to stop combining the barley as it was 2am. It was a very wet year and all the farmers were out all night just to get it in as it was better to get it in and pay to dry it than let it rot in the field. Politely told them no as it was only for one night of the year and they went off on one demanding to speak to the Sgt who incidently told them the same thing i.e don't by a house next to a field and complain about the noise of the combine. Funny never got another call from them.

 

Think "Townie" is a rather generic term as you get people in towns who are as rural as they come but just happen to live in a town and people in the country who have no idea what goes on there. I grew up on our own and uncles smallholdings with my uncle keeping pigs and we had sheep although my dad did have a full time job and it was more of a hobby but I loved it. Still do as you get to play with some great big toys when cutting the fields.

 

I get really wound up at anyone who lives in a town or in the country who things milk and bacon comes from a supermarket and have no idea how it got there. Also can't stand to see good arable ground wasted by being built on or as has happened just down the road from me where the new folk planted thousands of trees on an 8 acre field and don't cut the grass leading to thousands of thisltes and ragwort (not good in the hay field) popping up.

[pegasus bridge]

I always tell people who complain about what the farmers are doing............The countryside is a factory without a roof.

 

exactly that, its just ignorance to the countryside being a 'working landscape' rather than an enormous park, i had a discussion with someone whining about the overnight combining on a field close by, i pointed out they would rather that happen than 2000 'social' houses

[Breastman]

funny how most of the people moaning about "us townies" live in places ending in '......shire!' do you think the local baker will buy your 300 acres of wheat? next time your leg falls off, go see the local witch doctor, rather than comming to our major A&E. Its called moving forward. would anybody object if i bought a big house in the country? i wouldnt mind if ypu bumpkins come and live here.

 

A 'townie' is a derogotory term for someone who has lived in a city or town, then moves into the country and expects things to work the same/tries to impose their minority opinion on the majority of other residents. It is not a term for EVERYONE who happens to live in a town or city.

 

Would it be ok for a 'bumpkin' to drive their combine through a city cause gridlock and destroy a load of vehicles?? Or blast all the ferals off a monument with a shotgun??

Edited September 7, 2012 by Breastman

[DSPUK]

I am a townie- turned bumpkin 35 yrs ago and when we moved it was a case for us "When in Rome" always found it great - love smell of muck spreading - suppose it reminds me of outside bogs we had that never flushed and overflowed pan.

 

Faarmers in field at bottom of garden cutting his Wheat - really surprises me how he manages - he is standing there on front of his MF 487 - it get's parked up when finished and each year he comes back and it start's up with no problems. - He looks a bit grimy though as dust is really flying and fortunately wind is blowing away from us.

 

Dave

[Reece]

Theres nowt better than the smell of fresh cut wheat cant see why people complain about a bit of dust but their happy to breath in exhaust fumes in city centers.

 

Good point.

 

There's another type of townie, the militant the channel 4 property show migrants who've come to live the dream. They don't so much complain about the unexpected impact of farming, as create an adverse impact of their own. They festoon their houses in high power security lights and hold loud parties every time a child, friend, freinds mother, friends mother's dog etc has a birthday. They think that because their nearsest neighbour is 150 yds away and they can see fields through the window they're somewhere wild and remote.

And this points to the real problem: they do not see the countryside as a place where food is produced and where wild creatures live. For them the countryside is a public amenity and a playground where agriculture gets in the way. It is somewhere to play with a toy, go jogging (head down, i-pod in ears), ride their bikes, and generally befoul with litter and dog ****. They know nothing about farming or wildlife. They couldn't tell the difference between a badger and a weasel, milk comes in plastic bottles, vegetables come from Kenya and field gateways are parking spaces. That farm would make a great golf course, that wood a bike park, and that grazing land a free facility for dog fowling.

They know everything about rights but nothing about the responsibility of using rights of way. There is no question of educating them because they have no comprehension of an existing way of life into which they need to fit. For them farmland is 'open space', an extension of the town parks they left behind and to which they have right of access because they've paid their taxes. And because of their sheer numbers and electoral importance any government will fashion legislation to support their demands over the dwindling population of farmers and genuine country people. And this is not a dig at specific unnamed people, there are whole villages of them here.

 

Some people do see the countryside as a theme park, where farming is a hindrance. In reality, farming is the whole reason the countryside is as it is today. Some people don't see the countryside as a working landscape, they just see it as something pretty to look at and walk in.

 

I remember coming across one of the field abouts to be cut for hay ... there was a couple with a kid who deicded to climb over the wall and then (i assume to find a soft spot) had put there massive picnic blanket in about 6 different places completely flattening the grass ... when I asked what they were doing they said they thought you could just climb into a field for a picnic as you can't damage grass.

 

Another involved a women who let her dog chase sheep on a fell, when asked why she replied Fido was just playing with the wild sheep !! (thought they didn't belong to anyone)

 

I remember reading something in Shooting Times. A gamekeeper was walking through his wood and a woman was encouraging her dog to chase pheasant poluts, thinking it was the same as her dog chasing squirrels in the park.

 

Think "Townie" is a rather generic term as you get people in towns who are as rural as they come but just happen to live in a town and people in the country who have no idea what goes on there. I grew up on our own and uncles smallholdings with my uncle keeping pigs and we had sheep although my dad did have a full time job and it was more of a hobby but I loved it. Still do as you get to play with some great big toys when cutting the fields.

 

I get really wound up at anyone who lives in a town or in the country who things milk and bacon comes from a supermarket and have no idea how it got there. Also can't stand to see good arable ground wasted by being built on or as has happened just down the road from me where the new folk planted thousands of trees on an 8 acre field and don't cut the grass leading to thousands of thisltes and ragwort (not good in the hay field) popping up.

 

Townie is a state of mind. Location is not as relevant as the word suggests.

 

Agree with you on building, but there is no problem with planting fields with woodland, unless the field has good potential for something like grey partridges. A properly planted woodland will form a canopy fairly quickly and most of the thistles and ragwort will get shaded out by the trees.

 

 

I would like to share my dad's experience. This woman who used to live in our area was out walking her dogs through private woodland near pheasant pens, and when my dad found her, he happened to have his gun with him. He told her that the wood was private, but she was one of these people who think they have a god given right to walk wherever they want.

 

After this, she went home and told the police that he threatened to shoot her. My dad had his guns taken off him for a while, and he nearly went to prison based on nothing more than an allegation. Thankfully, some of the police saw through it, and there were witnesses from a nearby fishing lake who saw and heard everything. My dad eventually got his guns back.

 

She lived in a rural area but was a townie at heart. Of course, people like that claim to be "country people at heart", when they're far from it.

[Gimlet]

The townies today who moan about the noise and smells of farming don't know how easy they've got it. When I started primary school in 1970 there was still a dairy industry. Every farm round us had a milking herd and the cows shambled through the village twice a day. You couldn't mow the verge outside your house or park your BMW 4X4 on the roadside then. Cow **** was a fact of life. Cars were spattered with it, the road through the vaillage was green and children played in welly boots and came home with smeared legs. In the spring when they mucked out the cow sheds and took the ripe stuff up the road in the spreader great clods of it fell off and people went out with wheel barrows to collect it for the garden, otherwise it would have stayed there.

When we cycled to primary school we had to go past a ramshackle old farm right in the middle of the neighbouring village. I can remember when the milk was still collected in churns which were left out on a platform cut through the yard wall above the road. Everything was falling apart or leaking and a river of green water, nameless filth and silage liquor with straw and bits of string in it flowed off this platform and down the road almost continuously. The smell was tremendous and the tarmac dissolved. No-on ever complained. When you cycled past you had to slow down and lift up your legs. Bicycles then had 3 gears, sprung saddles and proper mud-guards, none of this poncey moutain bike nonsense, so you didn't spray the stuff up your back and over your head. Not that it would've mattered. About a quarter of the kids were from farm workers families and they smelled of muck and iodene anyway. Happy days.

[shaun4860]

The townies today who moan about the noise and smells of farming don't know how easy they've got it. When I started primary school in 1970 there was still a dairy industry. Every farm round us had a milking herd and the cows shambled through the village twice a day. You couldn't mow the verge outside your house or park your BMW 4X4 on the roadside then. Cow **** was a fact of life. Cars were spattered with it, the road through the vaillage was green and children played in welly boots and came home with smeared legs. In the spring when they mucked out the cow sheds and took the ripe stuff up the road in the spreader great clods of it fell off and people went out with wheel barrows to collect it for the garden, otherwise it would have stayed there.

When we cycled to primary school we had to go past a ramshackle old farm right in the middle of the neighbouring village. I can remember when the milk was still collected in churns which were left out on a platform cut through the yard wall above the road. Everything was falling apart or leaking and a river of green water, nameless filth and silage liquor with straw and bits of string in it flowed off this platform and down the road almost continuously. The smell was tremendous and the tarmac dissolved. No-on ever complained. When you cycled past you had to slow down and lift up your legs. Bicycles then had 3 gears, sprung saddles and proper mud-guards, none of this poncey moutain bike nonsense, so you didn't spray the stuff up your back and over your head. Not that it would've mattered. About a quarter of the kids were from farm workers families and they smelled of muck and iodene anyway. Happy days.

 

Did you live in an old septic tank int middle'o road, work 26 hours a day and pay for 't privelige?

 

[Pheasant Feeder]

The townies today who moan about the noise and smells of farming don't know how easy they've got it. When I started primary school in 1970 there was still a dairy industry. Every farm round us had a milking herd and the cows shambled through the village twice a day. You couldn't mow the verge outside your house or park your BMW 4X4 on the roadside then. Cow **** was a fact of life. Cars were spattered with it, the road through the vaillage was green and children played in welly boots and came home with smeared legs. In the spring when they mucked out the cow sheds and took the ripe stuff up the road in the spreader great clods of it fell off and people went out with wheel barrows to collect it for the garden, otherwise it would have stayed there.

When we cycled to primary school we had to go past a ramshackle old farm right in the middle of the neighbouring village. I can remember when the milk was still collected in churns which were left out on a platform cut through the yard wall above the road. Everything was falling apart or leaking and a river of green water, nameless filth and silage liquor with straw and bits of string in it flowed off this platform and down the road almost continuously. The smell was tremendous and the tarmac dissolved. No-on ever complained. When you cycled past you had to slow down and lift up your legs. Bicycles then had 3 gears, sprung saddles and proper mud-guards, none of this poncey moutain bike nonsense, so you didn't spray the stuff up your back and over your head. Not that it would've mattered. About a quarter of the kids were from farm workers families and they smelled of muck and iodene anyway. Happy days.

 

You've just brought back some memories there, I can remember the school bus being held up every other morning by a dairy herd being driven through the middle of the village.

I can also remember borrowing my uncles 3 geared bike with sprung saddle. And when anybody moaned about the smell of muck spreading, my father always used to say "it'll gi thy an apetite".

[Cottonseed]

A townie visitor to ours made me laugh today. The local farmer was rushing round the back field baling wheat straw and making a fair bit of racket. 'Is it like this every day on that field, she said!

[Scully]

A woman I've been working for in a local village told me that at one of the village committee meetings a relatively new couple to the village has complained about all 'the unsightly black bags' stacked in various fields.

[scolopax]

Love the way farmers get put on a pedestal here, they are not perfect at all, alot of them have little regard for anything else other than money and maintaining a tidy farm (i.e wildlife desert).

[keg]

Eh i dunno leaving them smelly black bin bags in't field. Nay lad that'll never do...

[leeds chimp]

i actually sometimes miss city life as moved from Leeds to Norfolk...being able to get a taxi and takeaway at 3am to deliver to my house

[Gimlet]

Love the way farmers get put on a pedestal here, they are not perfect at all, alot of them have little regard for anything else other than money and maintaining a tidy farm (i.e wildlife desert).

 

I don't think farmers themselves are being put on a pedestal. The theme is the attitude of certain urban migrants towards the countryside and their failure to understand that the rural landscape is industrial and owes its existence entirely to commercial production. What frustrates many of us is the widespread misconception that the landscape is a naturally occurring national resource which farming unfairly monopolizes, when in truth it has been created by agriculture and is for the most part private property.

I agree some farmers, or some farms, don't exactly help themselves. The worst offenders are farms which are controlled by company accountants or trusts and worked by contractors without a farmer in sight. Some of the more arrogant and insular of the farming set who never step out of their own social clique make me cringe too. They don't make defending the countryside any easier.

But we can't blame farmers entirely for intensive, accountant driven production. At the start of the 20th century there were twice the number of farms we have today serving half the population most of whom had to spend at least half their income to feed themselves, and then barely adequately. Today its 70 million people who seem to value leisure and entertainment above nutrition, and somehow manage to make themselves morbidly fat on a tenth of their earnings while sympathetic small scale farming goes to the wall. Our more-for-less supermarket culture has more to answer for than modern farming.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Gimlet