Finally I have a code to live by: the Countryside Code
Afestive walk, with the dog and the kids, through a National Trust estate. A whisper of fog lay over the parkland, a crunching carpet of silvered leaves under our feet. A trail of walkers dotted the path before us, their dogs roaming freely with ours. This is what we moved to the countryside for. This peace in nature and – dear god, why is that man showering us with expletives?
I blew him a kiss and he scuttled off, muttering mottle- faced admonitions about dogs, leads and the Countryside Code while staring fixedly at the ground. He had, however, hurled a grenade into my peace of mind. Had he taken us for day-trippers? Is our metamorphosis into convincing countrydwellers not yet complete? Are we wearing the wrong wellies?
More troubling even than a possible sartorial faux-pas was the thought that we may have broken a fundamental local law. Moving to a village and failing to read the Countryside Code is, I suppose, akin to living as an expat yet sticking stubbornly to English. So I started swotting up, and it turns out the code has form when it comes to stoking the “us and them” antagonisms between country-dwellers and townies.
The idea found an early champion in the post- war Labour government, which was keen to grant the general public, and particularly the working classes, more access to open land. Private landowners were predictably resistant to the great unwashed swarming off trains and into their fields, and so the Country Code (or the Code of Courtesy) was drawn up not only to protect farmland and wildlife, but to govern the conduct of these unruly grockles.
Does anyone remember Joe and Petunia? When the code was revised in 1971, a public information film was released in which pint-size Joe (voiced by Peter Hawkins, who also did Zippy in Rainbow and the Daleks in early Doctor Who) dismantles a drystone wall for the fun of hurling rocks into the distance, while his dog “plays” with some sheep off camera. The elephantine Petunia, ( squeezed into a strapless mini that makes viewers wince in vicarious anticipation of nettle stings), surveys a battlefield of picnic litter and remarks: “It’s ever so nice in this field but I’m glad those cows have gone.” “Aye,” replies Joe. “They’ve taken themselves off for a walk down t’road, through that gate I opened. The one marked private.”
This characterisation of the working classes looks a little… problematic today. The 1970s, however, were a simpler time, and the films went down a storm. Joe and Petunia went on to star in other films on such thrilling themes as “safety at the seaside” and “the danger of worn tyres”. Their popularity was rooted, at least in part, in a distinctly English appetite for moral superiority, still evident in the relish with which some of us yell at Sunday-strolling strangers.
Which is a shame, because actually, the code (you can find it online at Gov. uk) is full of helpful, practical and sensible guidelines summed up by its mantra: respect, protect, enjoy ( if I were a superhero, I’d have that for my catchphrase. That, or: don’t panic, you’re probably just hungry). Dogs should be on a lead when near farm animals, horses, wildlife or nesting birds ( we weren’t). Otherwise they should be well- enough trained to come back when called, within sight and well within permitted areas (he was). Dog mess should be bagged and, crucially, binned (who are the monsters hanging theirs from trees?).
I learned that farm animals take precedence over horse riders, who must in turn be respected by dog walkers. Bottom of the pile, however, are cyclists, who must give way to all of the above. A total reversal, then, of the current status quo in cities, where cyclists have become kings of the road, leading to the excruciating rise of the middle-aged man in Lycra. If only for putting the Mamil firmly back in his place, I’m a happy convert to the Countryside Code.