valuable mission to perform, and if and when that job for my rich uncle-by-marriage eventuates, I intend to send them a modest donation.
But “bungalowitis” is characteristic of more than
a spoiled countryside, it is typical of spoilt and ruined towns, of cramped and diminished lives of mean aims and sordid aspirations.
I believe it is Wilde who says “What we love we kill, ” or, lest someone should accuse me of a misquotation, I hasten to add — or words to that effect — and we certainly seem during the last fifty years to have been singularly successful in that respect with our towns.
The growth of the English town during the industrial era is the story of ‘‘From the bad to the worse, ’’
Like Topsy, they were not born, they grew, and for the most part they grew very lopsidedly and singularly ugly. There has never been anything like it in the history of building before.
Previous to the 19th century to build was to enhance and to beautify, a joyous undertaking to be rewarded with praise accompanied by many cakes and much ale. The emancipated creators of our industrial civilisation soon changed all that; they were the supremely practical people who believed in the utilitarian value of ugliness.
“We are the most urbanised people in the world, ”
if one is to trust the statement of a Cabinet Minister who apparently had no ulterior purpose in making it, and our towns are the ugliest; yet such is the mystery of the human heart that we have an affection even for the worst of them. I remember once saying to a Loyal Son of Bootle (before, of course, I knew he was a son) that Bootle, in my opinion, was not so much a town as a blunder. (I used Bootle as an example: it is, of course, no worse and no better than many other of the cruder manufacturing towns of the North. ) The L. S. B. got quite heated in his reply, and delivered an impassioned defence of Bootleism which did more credit to his heart than his head.
Now all this goes to prove that the problem of the protection of rural England will be solved not in the country, but in the towns. The newly inaugurated society can do a lot of useful preventive work, can attempt to coral the contagious in the compounds, but the real work of conversion must be carried out in the towns. To use a medical comparison, you can’t have the towns full of disease without in the end infecting the country. Some of my critics will at once reply, “But what of our garden cities? ” Quite so — what of them? I admire our garden cities immensely and the men who made them, and I at once admit that they are an honest and courageous attempt to solve the problem; but — the little ungracious “but” that will
intrude — aren’t they rather too much garden and not quite enough city? Don’t they, in effect, correspond to the ideal of the educated middle class who live in the more exclusive outer-suburbs, rather than to the ordinary lover of cake and ale?
Man is a gregarious creature, he likes to live in hoards like the ant; he doesn’t much mind tenements and terraces along as he feels neighbourly, and is it beyond our power to devise a town that shall give him the feeling of oneness with his fellows without it being too ugly and too unhealthy? Most of the 19th century towns will have to be rebuilt during the 20th, and it is up to those that do the rebuilding to have a proper understanding of the problem.
What man loves he beautifies, and the Loyal Sons of Bootle will end by rebuilding a beautiful Bootle. It is only a question of time, and when England is full of beautiful Booties there will be no longer any need to worry about the preservation of rural England, though a little worrying about it now will not be amiss. In the meantime, whilst you are waiting to join that new society of mine which I shall never start, “The Society for the Regeneration of Urban England, ” what about sending that small subscription to the other society? Half a loaf is better than no bread!
SKETCH AT BISKRA. By E. B. O’Rorke.
But “bungalowitis” is characteristic of more than
a spoiled countryside, it is typical of spoilt and ruined towns, of cramped and diminished lives of mean aims and sordid aspirations.
I believe it is Wilde who says “What we love we kill, ” or, lest someone should accuse me of a misquotation, I hasten to add — or words to that effect — and we certainly seem during the last fifty years to have been singularly successful in that respect with our towns.
The growth of the English town during the industrial era is the story of ‘‘From the bad to the worse, ’’
Like Topsy, they were not born, they grew, and for the most part they grew very lopsidedly and singularly ugly. There has never been anything like it in the history of building before.
Previous to the 19th century to build was to enhance and to beautify, a joyous undertaking to be rewarded with praise accompanied by many cakes and much ale. The emancipated creators of our industrial civilisation soon changed all that; they were the supremely practical people who believed in the utilitarian value of ugliness.
“We are the most urbanised people in the world, ”
if one is to trust the statement of a Cabinet Minister who apparently had no ulterior purpose in making it, and our towns are the ugliest; yet such is the mystery of the human heart that we have an affection even for the worst of them. I remember once saying to a Loyal Son of Bootle (before, of course, I knew he was a son) that Bootle, in my opinion, was not so much a town as a blunder. (I used Bootle as an example: it is, of course, no worse and no better than many other of the cruder manufacturing towns of the North. ) The L. S. B. got quite heated in his reply, and delivered an impassioned defence of Bootleism which did more credit to his heart than his head.
Now all this goes to prove that the problem of the protection of rural England will be solved not in the country, but in the towns. The newly inaugurated society can do a lot of useful preventive work, can attempt to coral the contagious in the compounds, but the real work of conversion must be carried out in the towns. To use a medical comparison, you can’t have the towns full of disease without in the end infecting the country. Some of my critics will at once reply, “But what of our garden cities? ” Quite so — what of them? I admire our garden cities immensely and the men who made them, and I at once admit that they are an honest and courageous attempt to solve the problem; but — the little ungracious “but” that will
intrude — aren’t they rather too much garden and not quite enough city? Don’t they, in effect, correspond to the ideal of the educated middle class who live in the more exclusive outer-suburbs, rather than to the ordinary lover of cake and ale?
Man is a gregarious creature, he likes to live in hoards like the ant; he doesn’t much mind tenements and terraces along as he feels neighbourly, and is it beyond our power to devise a town that shall give him the feeling of oneness with his fellows without it being too ugly and too unhealthy? Most of the 19th century towns will have to be rebuilt during the 20th, and it is up to those that do the rebuilding to have a proper understanding of the problem.
What man loves he beautifies, and the Loyal Sons of Bootle will end by rebuilding a beautiful Bootle. It is only a question of time, and when England is full of beautiful Booties there will be no longer any need to worry about the preservation of rural England, though a little worrying about it now will not be amiss. In the meantime, whilst you are waiting to join that new society of mine which I shall never start, “The Society for the Regeneration of Urban England, ” what about sending that small subscription to the other society? Half a loaf is better than no bread!
SKETCH AT BISKRA. By E. B. O’Rorke.