At a Country Fair

Cultural Mapping in 1951: The Festival of Britain Regional Guidebooks

“…They are handbooks for the explorer[.] 30 This avowed practical purpose was one of the most obvious defining features of the About Britain series and one which distinguished it from its competitors. These were handy but sturdy books designed to accompany travellers, not reference works to be consulted before or after their journeys.…”

“…53 Grigson's West Country was similarly enthusiastic about the designation of Dartmoor and Exmoor as National Parks and the Cotswolds, the Forest of Dean, the Wye Valley and the Scilly Isles as conservation areas. 54 On the other hand, Gruffydd's North Wales, though the author himself was obviously on the same side as Fitter and Grigson, was frank in recording local people's misgivings and opposition to a scheme that might threaten or compromise their way of life and undermine their capacity for self-determination. 55 Grigson's Wessex had much to say about agricultural change, not least the rise of dairying at the expense of sheep farming.…”

“…In this region, as elsewhere, a recent revolution in arable farming had also occurred under the stimulus of desperate war-time need for more grain. 56 No less a revolution in agriculture caught the eye of Mottram in his East Anglia. Here, too, sheep numbers had gone down steeply.…”

“…Grigson was clearly unhappy with the obtrusive presence of the army in the West Country in 1951: 'the Services in this nasty world appropriate about a seventh of the arable lands of Wiltshire, much of it on the downs' . 62 And the gazetteer that he himself compiled for this volume deliberately excluded those places he judged beneath notice like Aldershot, Andover and Warminister. Basing House received a mention as a site well worth viewing but not Basingstoke.…”