I discovered yesterday a 1970s edition of “The Shell Guide to England”, with a rather splendid preface by J B Priestley.
“On England” refers to ….”the “evil principle” which haunts planner and surveyors…to make way for the motor road, is hard at work among us”.
“We may not have done our best to ruin our enchanting countryside, but we have undoubtedly had a devil of a good try”, Priestly concludes.
However, he then decides to “accentuate the positive” – “I claim there is a magical element in England and the English (unruined) scene”, and to describe this magic which makes England, according to a fellow traveller, “the most beautiful country he had ever seen”.
The Shell Guide has a detailed Gazetteer which includes an interesting entry for Worcester, which notes the City’s propensity to “flooding which frequently was a greater menace than the many marauding armies the district has known….”
Nevertheless, the Gazetteer commiserates that Worcester and environs have fallen prey to…. “Road-building (which) has meant the loss of much that was old, beautiful and even great”.
I wonder what the contributors to this particular Shell Guide would have made of present plans for the area in the form of the South Worcestershire Joint Core Strategy and various current development proposals. Not a lot, I suspect.
The Witch of Worcester 