This green and pleasant land

By James Stone

You might imagine that a childhood growing up in the countryside would have made me au fait with farming methods and more than capable of holding my own in discussions about crop rotation, possibly while chewing absent-mindedly on a length of hay. You'd be wrong. Though I've certainly got a fair bit of experience with blindness-inducing scrumpy and have certainly lounged on many a Cornish beach or in countless meadows, (sometimes the cider was there too…), I'd never go so far as to call myself a 'country boy'. Ok, the 'city' I grew up in was very, very small and only merited metropolitan nomenclature thanks to its cathedral, but I've always considered myself far more suited to city life than listless country living.

And I've recently started to think that that's a bit of a shame. On a recent train journey to visit the folks, I noticed just how lovely England's mountains green really are. I won't deny that the train pulled out of the big city far earlier than I'd have ideally liked to set off (especially as it was a Saturday morning and I wasn't feeling particularly special), but there was something wholly relaxing and not a little bit sad about the two-hour trip.

As we powered through surprisingly picturesque parts of Berkshire and some extremely pleasant tree-lined Wiltshire villages, an unfortunate realisation came to mind. An epiphany, if you will. And I couldn't get Joni Mitchell out of my head either.

A rural childhood, it seems to me, breeds two types of people - those instantly suited to life in the country, and those who spend their formative years dreaming to surroundings slightly less sleepy. I certainly fell into the latter camp, especially in my adolescence and when a chance arose to live amid the hustle and bustle of New York, and then London, I grasped the opportunity without a moment's hesitation.

I won't go as far to say that either was a rash decision, and I certainly don't want to move back to the wilds right now, but that short little train journey certainly made me realise that Joni was right when she sang "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone". Being stuck on a stifling Tube or barging your way down a crowded city street really does make you conscious of the fact that you should've been more appreciative of growing up in the midst of rural England. In a two hour journey, firm resolutions were confirmed in my mind - i)to try and get out of the city more, because it's actually quite nice to see trees and fields once in a while, and ii)to move back to the countryside…well, one day anyway.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Jerusalem, as far as hymns go, and while I'm not sure what I think about its religious aspects, or its frankly improbably propositions (Bethlehem and England being a fair old way from each other), a little train journey through "England's pleasant pastures" made me love it all the more.