Where I should've been today ...

I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler from Manchester way
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

Kinder Scout 

Today is the first day of the Right to Roam. The fight for this right started decades ago, when working class people, slaving week long (often a 6 day week) in factories and mills, demanded access to the beautiful high places during their free time. But most of the beautiful high places were privately owned and access was not permitted to ordinary people. So ordinary people fought for it, and were often beated up or imprisoned for it, most famously on the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in April 1932. Ewan (father of Kirsty) McColl wrote The Manchester Rambler for the occassion.


Kinder Mass Trespass Memorial Plaque, Hayfield  

Never tell me that direct action does not work. The establishment of Britain's first national park, the Peak District national park created in 1951, was as a direct result of the right to roam movement. The fight for a legal 'right to roam' across the whole country has taken till now to be won. Its establishment follows in a direct line from those men and woman who wouldn't let gamekeepers and landlords keep them from their right to enjoy England's beautiful places. Without them, we wouldn't have that right today.