Vron Ware - Return of a Native: Learning from the Land

Published by Repeater Books

An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd

Unit 11 Shepperton House

89-93 Shepperton Road

London

N1 3DF

United Kingdom

www.repeaterbooks.com

A Repeater Books paperback original 2022

Distributed in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.

Copyright Vron Ware 2022

Vron Ware asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

ISBN: 9781913462987

Ebook ISBN: 9781913462970

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited

A brilliant, beautiful and chilling portrait of Englands fateful present.

LES BACK, AUTHOR OF THE ART OF LISTENING

Return of a Native transforms our understanding of the local as Vron Ware reveals the complex connections of the land, its food and animal production and human and nonhuman inhabitants to global networks of agriculture, commerce and politics.

HAZEL V. CARBY, AUTHOR OF IMPERIAL INTIMACIES: A TALE OF TWO ISLANDS

This incisive work beautifully excavates the troubled, ultimately colonial, inheritance that haunts the making of modern British rural life.

IAIN CHAMBERS, AUTHOR OF POSTCOLONIAL INTERRUPTIONS, UNAUTHORISED MODERNITIES

Wares subtle and fascinating research steers us round rural twist after rural turn towards what we can only hope will be a more equitable future.

OLLIE DOUGLAS, MUSEUM OF ENGLISH RURAL LIFE

Ware gives us a moving and often funny personal story which offers a fresh look at urgent questions relating to environmentalism, colonial legacies, class, culture and nationalism.

ADAM ELLIOTT-COOPER, AUTHOR OF BLACK RESISTANCE TO BRITISH POLICING

A sly, luminous, brutal, and funny excavation of rural place through time, Return of a Native brings to mind not only Hardy but also Saramago. The churn of consciousness haunts every page. Ware raises from the ground an English villages interdependence with otherwises and elsewheres of imperial modernity.

RUTH WILSON GILMORE, AUTHOR, ORGANISER AND GEOGRAPHY PROFESSOR

A thorough, enthralling and spirited reconstruction of what it took to be modern, Return of a Native is a gold mine.

ACHILLE MBEMBE, AUTHOR OF NECROPOLITICS

Ware brings the world to bear on a hamlet, the smallest form of human settlement, and the hamlet, a piece of ground, to bear on the world and the planet.

SARAH NUTTALL, DIRECTOR OF THE WITS INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH, JOHANNESBURG

In the wake of the pandemic and as the borders between the rural and urban grow ever more porous, this illuminating anatomy of the English countryside is a timely read.

LOLA OKOLOSIE, TEACHER AND WRITER

Return of a Native bears the compelling message that if you want to understand the world around you, look to the ground beneath your feet.

DANIEL TRILLING, AUTHOR OF LIGHTS IN THE DISTANCE

The perfect book for anyone who has had enough of mournful elegies to England.

PATRICK WRIGHT, AUTHOR OF THE VILLAGE THAT DIED FOR ENGLAND: TYNEHAM AND THE LEGEND OF CHURCHILLS PLEDGE

In loving memory of Lidia Curti.

CONTENTS

Theory the seeing of patterns, showing the forest as well as the trees theory can be a dew that rises from the earth and collects in the rain cloud and returns to earth over and over. But if it doesnt smell of the earth, it isnt good for the earth.

Adrienne Rich

One of the problems of working within a geographical framework is that youre standing in something like a field of rabbits, which are endlessly darting into different holes in the ground. You could be following them in a hundred different directions forever I think that a territory is very different from a place on a map. Its got more dimensions, its not all resolved, and it doesnt disclose itself along a single perspective. Its an argument as well as a locality, and if you work it through properly, youll find its a microcosm.

Patrick Wright

1. READING THE SIGNS

ARRIVAL AT THE CROSSROADS DISTANCE FROM LONDON INTRODUCING THE LANDSCAPE AND REASONS FOR BEING THERE THE SIGNPOST INTRODUCING SHEILA WEBB THE COMING OF ELECTRICITY AND MAINS WATER MORE ON THE SIGNPOST, ROAD NAMES AND GPS ROUTES INTRODUCING ROBERT TASKER SPECIFIC ECOLOGY OF HEATHLAND AND HISTORY OF PILL HEATH FROM COMMONS, ENCLOSURE TO CULTIVATION INTRODUCING THE DEWARS WHO OWNED A SUGAR PLANTATION IN ST KITTS INTRODUCING ROLY CLARKE WHO CAMPAIGNED FOR THE LAND TO BE RETURNED TO THE COMMONS REASONS WHY IT WASNT DISCUSSION OF COUNTIES AS GEOGRAPHICAL UNITS AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HAMPSHIRE INTRODUCING F. E. STEVENS AND HIS BOOK HAMPSHIRE WAYS CONTEMPORARY REPRESENTATIONS OF NW HAMPSHIRE, INCLUDING FEATURES RELATING TO PLANNING (AONB) 1951 AS AN IMPORTANT MOMENT IN THE URBAN-RURAL DICHOTOMY THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WESSEX AND STONEHENGE THE IMPORTANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL THOUGHT DARWINS EARTHWORMS THE PARISH AS A MEANINGFUL UNIT DISQUIET ABOUT LARGE HOUSES IN THE VICINITY INTIMATIONS OF CIVIL WAR.

I t is late when I arrive at the crossroads. A Thursday evening in November is approaching the time of twilight. The stubble fields behind me appear grey in the ebbing light, but ahead there is a startling mix of ripened auburn leaves, still green grass and golden seedheads. The eye cant help but follow the line of the road on the far side of the intersection, drawn to a vague horizon that merges with soft clouds like distant smoke.

Leaving London is like climbing up a very old tree. You start by crawling up the trunk and then take the biggest branch off to the left or right at the first opportunity. Keep turning along smaller and smaller boughs until you arrive at the final forked twig. I am not actually that far from the crown of the tree if Im honest. This may not be the Home Counties but its scarcely the provinces. Since leaving London I havent passed through any towns or built-up areas, but I know Im in the countryside now as Ive just driven through a village with numerous thatched cottages, and the road is barely wide enough for two cars. Still, according to the estate agents, I am within easy reach of one of the most cosmopolitan cities on Earth.

Arriving at this particular crossroads means that I am almost at my destination, but not quite. Theres just one final turn of a twig. I pull over on the small gravel lay-by and get out of the car to stretch my legs. I often find driving tedious and annoying: the clogged North Circular, crowded motorway and then incessant winding roads. Its all so familiar, but then at a certain point the familiarity becomes overwhelming. I feel an umbilical pull to house and land tempered by alienation from a place I no longer consider home.