The state of the fens

APOLOGISTS FOR the apartheid regime in South Africa used to claim that the living conditions of Blacks were better than those in many of the then independent African countries. It may possibly have been true, but it was of course irrelevant, for two reasons. First, the issue which was fundamental to apartheid was that a group of people were treated worse than another group because of the colour of their skin. Second, even if comparisons were appropriate, they could not realistically be comparisons with other countries whose conditions could be known only at second hand. As we all know perfectly well, the comparisons which we make between what happens to us and what happens to others are comparisons between the known. "My salary level, conditions of work, housing, cost and availability of food are better/worse than those of my contemporaries, fellow citizens, people who were at school or university with me, neighbours in the same town" and so on.

That is why it is necessary to take seriously a recent report, entitled "The State of the Countryside 2001", that shows that areas of the county of Cambridgeshire are among the most unhealthy and deprived in the country. The report, produced by the Countryside Agency, while noting that Cambridge itself is one of the least deprived, and healthiest, areas of the country, recorded that some of the adjacent areas to the north of the city - rural fenland - are subject to severe deprivation. Average earnings are lower than the national average, and for many, engaged in jobs based on the land, such as agriculture and horticulture, employment is seasonal and casual, and often part- time.

The present crisis in British farming resulting from the epidemic of foot and mouth disease is only one reminder of problems which have faced this industry for many years. Average incomes from farming, for example, have fallen drastically in the past year, and are at their lowest for a quarter of a century.

If the comparison was with deprived areas of eastern Europe, or with many Third World countries, then certainly the people of rural Cambridgeshire would not be listed among the deprived but, as I suggested at the beginning of this "Letter" that is not the appropriate comparison. Booming Cambridge, with its fast-growing and successful high-tech industry encouraged by proximity to one of the world's leading universities, with great strength in the sciences, has many well-paid and interesting jobs on offer. It is widely known as Silicon Fen - Britain's answer to America's Silicon Valley. The comparison with the real fens is all the more poignant.

It is a real problem, highlighted and exacerbated by the success of Cambridge in the last quarter of the 20th Century and it deserves a proper and well thought out solution. There are many small farmers, only 20 kilometres from Cambridge, who are in real distress. The committee which supports Chaplaincy to People at Work in the Cambridge area (of which I am a member) was reminded of this only a couple of weeks ago, by one of the part-time chaplains.

Though the problem is now acute, however, it is a reminder of a disparity that goes back to the medieval period. As the University developed, following its foundation in 1209, it gradually grew into an international and sophisticated seat of European learning. The cathedral city of Ely, only 20 km distant, was separated from Cambridge by mysterious, flooded fenland, difficult to traverse, into which travellers did not venture alone.

The journey now, of course, is easy - 20 minutes by train or car. And the likelihood of being assailed by fenland footpads is remote. Nevertheless, some of the mystery remains, and I was reminded of it by a notice on a gate to a footpath beside one of the many drainage canals in the fens.

The notice was publicising the availability of balance sheets for the different drainage boards responsible for, among others, Ladus Fen, March Third, Fifth and Sixth, Needham Burial and Birdbeck, Ransonmoor, Curf, Drysides, Euximoor, Hundred Foot Washes, Hundred of Wisbech, Nightlayers, Nordelph, Ramsey First (Hollow), Ramsey Fourth (Middlewick), Ramsey Upwood and Great Raveley, Worboys Somersham and Pidley, Westside Marshes and Wimblington.

The names are all quaint and redolent of a long vanished age - a far cry from the high-tech world of neighbouring Cambridge. But the people who live in these fenland areas are real - and many of them are the embodiment of the rural deprivation described in "The State of the Countryside 2001" report.

BILL KIRKMAN

The writer is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. E-mail him at wpk1000@cam.ac.uk

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