There they are Sarsons and Blue
from the Neolithic people who
dragged their wealth onto the green
with muscle never by machine
spuriousness and fraility
And ofcourse the mendacity
an ediface and affirmation
a place of druidic creation
the bones of many would have lain
the threat of sinew and of pain
and now Grant Schapps
decides that he
will forge a path
and try to see
the enigmatic faithful who
left behind these stones to woo
new devotees to the way
to communicate and try to lay
inventiveness
ideality
chimerical and legendary
a tunnel
On the A303
With our present eyes
of course we see
all the glory of long ago
of miracles as well we know
knock it down use JcB’s
Unearth the antiquities
destruction based upon the car
the labouring mobsters they will scar
the sitev the Sarsons and the Blues
And it seems we have lost the rights to choose.
Rex Tyler is a Poet, Campaigner, former owner of an organic shop of 30 years, and Public Speaker living in Berkhamsted, UK.
In 1981, access to Stonehenge was completely open on 21st June, my 16th birthday. 40,000 people were there to celebrate the Solstice. There was music and singing and dancing and so much joy. And nobody in charge, no entry fee. Well, that can’t be allowed can it? People enjoying themselves, their culture and the environment … and nobody making a profit? Outrageous!
When we moved to the Salisbury area many years later, the stones were still visible from the road but the site was fenced off so you could only see it from a distance unless you bought a ticket and paid to go in. They had put down a metal path so you could get nearer the stones, but not touch them or just wander round the site. And was only open during the working day, so there was no way to personally witness or study or research links between the stone and astronomical features at night. You see, some government agency now ‘owned’ this site. I did not realise a current government agency had built it, funny that. It makes you wonder about all property being theft.
But people could still see the stones from the A road than ran nearby for free as they drove past. Isn’t it outrageous that photons freely sent from the Sun and reflected of the stones should be available to be fortuitously caught by the eyes of passers-by without someone making a profit from it? So that has to be stopped. They tried a fence but it was not enough – so the road must go UNDER the site, at immense cost to the taxpayer, to protect the much smaller profit made from taxpayers paying to attend the site.
Making it a toll road would have made far more economic sense. <– genuine rocket scientist / brain surgeon level thinking, that is.
You are not entitled to see your own cultural artefacts without a landowner – who has nothing to do with the existing of those artefacts – making money from you, obviously.
Hmm. I wonder why we have issues in society of people not valuing their history, their environment, their cultural heritage? Maybe they would value them more if we put up the ticket prices?
It is now £22 per head, plus parking. In 1981, that 3 day celebration would have raised over £2,640,000 for somebody who did not have to do anything for it. No wonder it isn’t free.
I am sure the people who built it would be so happy.