Plastic roses & the future of memories

My inappropriate laughter at the sight of plastic flowers conveniently weighted with (more) plastic to sit in a grave vase echoes along an almost empty aisle. Thankfully, the other shoppers continue browsing: machine-crafted caravans in miniature (bird houses) and plastic succulents in Perspex mini-greenhouses - the latter thoughtfully provided with an open vent.

Just a few days ago I was meandering through a local cemetery, enjoying the blend of nature and human history, when I came across a neatly-kept granite headstone bearing a memorial to Hannah, a lady who had passed away in her 84th year. Also commemorated on the headstone was her baby sister who had died aged three months, when Hannah would have been 4 years old.

Accompanying these etched dates were the memorable lines: 'God has given us our memories that we might have roses in December' - lines so redolent with the resilience and determination of the generation born in the early 20th century.

It's in this context that the plastic roses caused my merriment, closely followed by a sense of sadness for freedoms lost: how the ever-present consumer elements of our society today tend to usher people away from memory, self-possession and creating their own set of values, and then tries to fill the vacuum with purchases to 'express style' and 'release inner calm'. It is one thing that shops sell such 'lifestyle' accessories - it is another that people buy them, indicating that society as a whole is losing the essence of what is important in terms of real freedom. We are consumers more than we are citizens, and our identities are defined increasingly by our possessions.

As western societies become engaged only in the urban setting, by default we loose awareness of the countryside and the unencumbered horizons, open to possibility, that it provides. Effectively, we enclose ourselves in wholly human-dominated environments.

Enclosure, in an historical sense, describes the process by which land that was used by all - the Commons - has been claimed and enclosed for the use of a specific owner. This change has been driven by those in authority and imposed on those less able to protect their rights - often despite vociferous protest. These changes form the core theme of Nick Hayes' 'The Book of Trespass'. Now, society seems to be embracing our own enclosure in to the built environment - willingly, repeatedly, focusing on the detail of home-wares, and the minutiae of celebrity lifestyle , even in the face of crisis in the natural world on which we all ultimately depend for survival.

The disconnect between plastic roses - manufactured on the far side of the world, in a factory with few (if any) environmental regulations, then shipped 6000 miles to the UK, to discompose to wildlife-endangering components in a green churchyard - and the inscription on the headstone I had read only days is huge. A chasm exists between the mindset of the lady who asked for this beautiful epitaph, and the world we inhabit today - a separation not only of time but in the extent of urban development.

Green-field development tumbles down a hill near Truro, Cornwall

Un-branded, un-labelled space in which to think, dream and murmur, away from the context of consumerism that touches many aspects of our lives in towns and cities, is in rapid decline, replaced with private property. Fields with paths morph in to housing estates with parks, and we have less opportunity to get away from the pressures of our productive life, and re-create our selves.

Before 2026, all public rights of way need to be claimed to ensure they are not lost, and at the price of wet legs and minor brushes with nettles, I am happy to walk those paths I can reach, to help keep them open for the future. As the urban setting gets larger and more intense, the fragile tendrils of ancient public rights of way that cross private land are our link to imagining our own futures, and enjoying our own memories, and contemplating the future we must shape.

And I will return to the grave of Hannah and Rosina in December, with some fresh roses.

References include:

The Book of Trespass - crossing the lines that divide us: Nick Hayes (published 2021)

Don't Lose your Way campaign to save footpaths in England and Wales - here.

The story about Rosina and Hannah Saunders is on the People & Places page.