Townies

[Scully]

Wot 'e said....cracking post!

[keg]

Agreed Gimlet, well said sir. A few years ago, a day out meant visiting the countryside. Now it means the local shopping temple.

We really need to adjust our priorities, but sadly, i think it's already gone beyond that.

Edited September 9, 2012 by keg

[ben0850]

Gimlet for PM!!

In my humble opinion a "townie" is simply an uneducated person who is ignorant with regard to the natural environment. I have encountered this particular type of person from both rural and urban backgrounds.

The problems we have to deal with (dogs chasing stock, litter, etc etc) are just generally systematic of the "modern" generation whether that be road rage, litter, lack of manners, no common courtesy etc!

[Cottonseed]

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.

 

Spot on.

[spanj]

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.

 

Absolutely spot on

[alan barrett]

Had to add this one to the list. We do some work on converted farm buildings, had a call from the boss yesterday " could one of the lads go and check the drains at some of the units, one of the women was complaining about smelly drains" . He gets to site checks the drains no problem, talking to some other tenants, local farmer had been muck spreading the day before, bloody smelly farmers.

[Gerry31]

I married a girl from that big town down south and she really was a townny. I came home from work soon after we moved back to gods country to find she had spent all morning struggling to get a wooden box contraption that some how had gotten tied to a sheep and was full of blue dye off it. It took some explaining to the farmer why his ewes had no dye marks yet my wifes hands were bright blue.

[martin-till]

I married a girl from that big town down south and she really was a townny. I came home from work soon after we moved back to gods country to find she had spent all morning struggling to get a wooden box contraption that some how had gotten tied to a sheep and was full of blue dye off it. It took some explaining to the farmer why his ewes had no dye marks yet my wifes hands were bright blue.

 

 

Hahahaha... Bet it took some explaining.

Edited September 12, 2012 by martin-till

[keg]

I was explaining a tupping harness to a mate many moons ago and he still laughs his head off when we talk about it.