FraserWords

WHEN I first knew it, 20 years ago, Cardinham was a relatively peaceful outpost of the Forestry Commission, a few hundred acres of Cornish woodland criss-crossed by largely empty tracks in which management, my old collie Max (the Crab rest him) and I could ramble and enjoy the countryside.

Now? Sweet Jesus.

On sunny Sunday, Management announced that we had decided to meet there for lunch in the café after my oldest and I had played tennis in Bodmin and she and my youngest, Tom, had torn themselves away from his latest Lego construction project.

Well. Cardinham could not in any way have been less like the countryside if it was plonked down in the middle of a London shopping mall. Tens of thousands of people – it is possible I may be exaggerating, but only slightly – milling around in Millets walking wear or Sports Direct cycle togs, all Lycra and fluoresecence, all cycle racks and those ridiculous hiking sticks beloved of pensioners’ walking groups. There was not a parking space to be had; if you managed to park, you would be rewarded with a large bill for a pay and display ticket and you would have won the right to shuffle around the once empty forest tracks in a polite and orderly queue.

Having got there first and found this devastation, I rang Management on the mobile. ‘Do not under any circumstances come anywhere near Cardinham’, I told her. ‘If I have to stay here a moment longer I will embark on something which gives rise to a phrase which ends in the word ‘spree’, and ‘spree’ is never a good word.’

Thinking fast on my feet as I spun the car round in a 90-degree handbrake turn at the end of one of the choked car parks, spitting gravel over labradoodles and Santa hats, I barked ‘meet at Lanhydrock’ down the phone and fled the grisly scene as fast as I could.

When I first knew it, many more than 20 years ago, Lanhydrock was a relatively peaceful outpost of the National Trust’s vision of old England, a few hundred acres of Cornish estate criss-crossed by largely empty tracks in which Captain Kay and I could seek coffee, toast and a welcome respite from our journalistic labours.

Now? Sweet Jesus. It made Cardinham look like a desert island. Now that the National Trust has industrialised our heritage, tidied it up, polished it to a nice shine, given it a cute logo and shoved a price tag upon it, Lanhydrock’s sparkling new parking complex, adventure playground, cycle hire outpost, cafe and visitor centre were besieged by many more tens of thousands of people in coordinated leisure gear and designer-badged faux knitwear.

As the children were hungry, we reluctantly queued in the café, which had all the dignity and ambience of a sixth form cafeteria. Something in me baulks at paying more than £8 for Jamie’s choice, a burger and a few chips – sorry, ‘potato wedges’ – so I had a coffee and grumbled. My Tom would have liked just a slice of toast, he announced. Had it been on the menu as ‘hand-grilled home-sliced cutlets of organic bread served with dairy-churned Cornish butter’ at £6.50, we’d have been OK, but it wasn’t on the menu, so we weren’t.

OK. I’ll stop now. What it comes down to is this. There are too many people. I’m sorry, but there are too many people.

And all these too many people haven’t time or space to work out that the central problem is that there are too many people, because all of us are far too occupied being sold things, relentlessly, continually, in a sort of teeth-gritted this-is-what-we-do regimented manner devoid of joy or usefulness.

You can never have everything you need. By order. For example, walking boots are not enough to walk in – you must have gloves and sticks and high-vis gaiters. And they must wear out quickly.

But no matter how much detail you dig down, the central fact remains: there are too many people. Cornwall is full. The country is full. Well, almost.

This morning I collected my mad collie, Max’s unworthy successor Belle, and walked to the bottom of our hill and along the banks of the Lynher through sun-lit woodland. I saw nobody. I am blessed.

More so tonight. I can see few lights from my window, and the fire is crackling. So it is possible to believe this modern world is not lurking out there in ambush, waving its electronic devices. It is possible to believe that it is not a news story that rich Western children have not been able to play on their expensive electronic games consoles. It is possible to believe that rich Western people have no right to complain that the snow has ruined their ski-ing holiday, because they do not need and are not automatically entitled to that ski-ing holiday. Games and ski-ing are luxuries, and the people whining on the news about how badly they’ve been treated would do well to remember a sense of perspective and decency. It is possible to believe that people could have trains that worked. It is possible to believe in an absence of an overheard EastEnders at Christmas: who in their right mind would believe the filthy squalor of these vile hate-filled people is suitable for viewing at any time of year, let alone Christmas?

I could go on. And on. But for now, I prefer to believe I am blessed.

So let us say goodbye to 2014 and the world that inhabited it, and hope for all of us to share a better world in 2015.

Especially you, my brothers and sisters. Thank you for your friendship and your reading through the year, and thank you to those who supported my book. Happy new year to all of you.