I sit in the green and pleasant corner of this land known as Runnymede where the Thames laps its way ever closer to London.
Trees
line the river’s edge and the Willows that stand weeping into the river might
well be weeping for what man has done to the land.
For
this place though beautiful still was once more so.
The
senses cannot fail to notice man’s hand, the ears are assailed by the constant
hum of motorway traffic and by jets arriving and departing Heathrow and the
nostrils are filled with the stench of aviation fuel.
The
area is littered with inappropriate buildings and roads of every type scar the
land.
On
the river the surface of the water bares the tell-tale rainbow pattern of
patches of fuel slick and at its edge the 21st century flotsam of
tin cans, McDonald’s wrappers, fag ends and paper cups.
If
King John, who under pressure from his barons signed the Magna Carta here in
1215, was to stand here now and see what we have done he might well fall upon
his own sword.
