United Kingdom · 1930s
4 ideas
Rolt’s 1939 journey aboard Cressy records English canal craft, boatmen, landscapes, and a transport world already slipping from commercial use.
People raised on the land feel at ease in silent, lonely places. Townspeople who return to the countryside often find that solitude unbearable. The author counts this estrangement as one of the tragic costs of the drift into towns.
Slow travel along an old route brings you into contact with local craftspeople and country people, and with what makes each place itself. In the author's view, swift transport, standardised goods and ever more centralised city government wear that distinctness away. He argues this as a man who loved rural crafts, not as one who lived by them.
Once a transport network loses its trade to newer rivals, the public soon forgets it ever existed. It joins the ranks of the old cross-country tracks that pack-horse trains once used. The decline in use comes first, and the loss of public knowledge follows close behind.
As everyday skills give way to modern convenience, practical knowledge such as what herbs and seasonings are worth slips out of common use. With it goes the habit of patient care, which the humblest farmhouse once took for granted. The author pairs this with what he calls the modern 'mania of hurry'.