Will the Past Ever Inform the Future?

          At this time of year, when summer is morphing into autumn, I like to observe the subtle progress of the seasons’ handover. The years have taught me what to look for and what to expect – which makes the changes wrought by pollution and the shift in our climate worrying, to say the least. Perhaps the coming generation will be less anxious about losing the past and more focused on forming the future.

          I’m thinking of two young men in particular. One is the child of friends, the other a great nephew. I’ve seen them only sporadically during their childhoods, but they have both now turned 18 and, coincidentally, I spent a little time with each of them last week. For these young men, the subtleties of seasonal change are secondary to what is happening in their lives: they are excited about starting at university. They will study subjects based on their aptitudes – the arts and geopolitics, respectively – though I hope they will one day conclude that nothing exists in isolation, not in the biosphere nor in the sphere of human affairs (neither of which is in good shape right now).

          I’ve remarked before about the strange phenomenon of three-a.m.-anxiety, whereby sleeplessness is exacerbated by fretting over small issues. These past few days, however, my three a.m. slot has been filled with doom and despair over the takeover of the world by just a few dictators, most of whom were invited to a self-congratulatory party in China this week, where they gloated over the quantity and quality of their host’s weaponry, while Trump sulked at home, where he has yet to graduate to full-on tyrant. I sense that his exclusion from the gang rankles.

          Morning dawns gloomily after a night of such preoccupations, but therapy is at hand in the form of distractions, i.e. enjoying what freedoms we still have – campervanning, for instance. The last outing – to Hartland, North Devon – proved to me, yet again, just how much there is still to explore on the relatively small island of Britain. The diversity of landscape and the legacy of our social history will keep me occupied (or distracted) for as long as I’m capable of pursuing them.

          The extraordinary geology of the coastline around Hartland Point has thrown up dramatic jagged, saw-tooth rock formations for the Atlantic to smash into and for ships to be wrecked upon. On a blustery day at Hartland Quay, the elemental power of nature inspires awe and is likely one reason why the Smugglers Inn, with its offer of comfortable refuge, has endured for the hundred years since trade (legal and illicit) shifted away from the sea and onto the roads and railways. Another is the rise of tourism, itself driven – as film buffs will know – by the fact that the location has been a favourite with film directors since 1950.

          The quay itself was a capitalist venture; infrastructure built for profit and financed privately. Once the business model failed, the quay was left to ruin. All that remains in the water now is a slipway constructed by latter-day enthusiasts. However, nearby, there’s a more enduring monument to a former way of life, Hartland Abbey (also a famous filming location). It survives because it has been a family home since 1539, when Henry VIII dissolved the Abbey and gave the estate to the Sergeant of his Hampton Court wine cellar. Monarchs, of course, only owned land because they had taken it by force in the first place, but this small detail has never troubled the beneficiaries of their ‘generosity’. So-called nobility apparently sees it as a hereditary right to own land and rent it back to those from whom it was taken.

          But don’t get me started. Having failed to rectify this historical injustice in my lifetime, I must hope that the next generation of idealistic, hope-filled youngsters will sort it all out – after they’ve paid back their student loans, of course.