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From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
Email: open.country@bbc.co.uk
Postal address: Open Country,
大象传媒 Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.
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When you turn on the tap have you ever wondered where the water comes from? If you live in Birmingham, the answer is the Elan Valley in Wales. The valley was dammed and flooded at the turn of the last century and a pipeline carries millions of gallons of water 70 miles, all down hill, at two miles an hour to Birmingham. It is an engineering miracle and the equal of any of the great feats of water technology dreamt up by the Romans - but this visionary solution created in responce to the needs of an growing industrial city came at a price.
The people who lived in the Elan Valley 100 years ago had their lives turned upside down. Thrown off their land, many were left without compensation to find new homes wherever they could. All that seems to be forgotten as today the dam attracts 400,000 visitors a year and is considered vital to the economic lifeblood of local town Rhayader and surrounding area. It has become welcomed, and even cherished by the local population, but the idea of huge English cities drawing their water needs from the Welsh countryside and, in the process, destroying cultures and a way of life has not always been softened by the passage of time. For some the memories are too fresh and the resentment still lingers.
Keith Pybus, a retired industrialist from Birmingham is enthused by the technical marvel of the Elan Valley project and tells Richard that, at a time when Prince Albert had died of a typhus, a water-bourne disease, the problem of providing clean and safe water was a vital requirement.
Betty Davies's family farmed in the Elan Valley and remembers her father talking about the time the dam, and with it thousands of workmen, came to the valley.
The perfect choice of the engineers who built the dam becomes evident when the heavens open and Richard takes shelter in the car to talk to local historian Bryan Lawrence. He tells Richard of the local reaction to the dam and reveals that, though the valley contains millions of gallons of water for the people of Birmingham, the cottages dotted along the crest of the valley had no running water supply until a few years ago and the irony was not lost - nor forgotten by some local people. However, as these problems recede into the past and are absorbed into the pages of history, the dam and the valley it transformed have grown in the affections of the local people. They are proud and fond of its elegance and gothic charm.
The priority of the English politicians and the treatment of the local population is a theme taken up by our Aeron Jones, who farms his family farm on the banks of the Capel Celyn Lake. This man-made lake was created to provide water for the people of Liverpool. It was completed in the 1960s and created far more vociferous and violent protests than Elan. People were less deferential and accepting, Aeron tells Richard. The locals felt cheated and the anger and sense of loss still lingers - if anything it increases with time.
John Lewis Jones is 92. He lived in the valley until he left for college and work and echoes Aeron's feelings of anger. He tells Richard that the recent apology from the Liverpool councillors is too little too late and the people they should have apologised too are all dead. He says their culture and heritage were stolen from them and the anger still burns today. He says the idea of another country just coming in and doing what they wanted, despite the wishes of the local population, still rankles and makes a nonsense of democracy for the people of Wales.
Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk
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