Ninety-two per cent of the land and ninety-seven per cent of the waterways in England are private, meaning you and I cannot walk or swim in most of the country. Up go fences, intimidating signs, barking dogs, anything that can draw a boundary between what is public and what is privately owned by V.R.Ps… very rich people. This is what Nick Hayes presents in this book. Every chapter is named after an animal whose story is first, and then there are historical facts of England’s property law, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, colonialism and slavery and how this created this great sense of ownership and entitlement. Throughout each chapter, we also follow Nick Hayes and some of his friends trespassing on these private properties, cautiously, without damaging anything, just taking advantage of nature. These fences are not just a division of land, but also a sign of the division of people. England has to thoroughly think about all of this. The pages are also illustrated by Nick Hayes, with fabulous engravings. I really loved this book.
“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words are just vessels: they transmit opinions that their writers have every right to hold. But as John Musgrave’s experience shows, words are more than conveyors of meaning – when used enough, when repeated like a mantra, when held by consensus, they can create cognitive boundaries between subjects and their objects. They can wall off the human from the humane.”
Read and listened to as an audiobook