THE DECLINE OF AN ENGLISH VILLAGE. By Robin Page.

(1974) 2019 3rd edition reprint. 8vo (163 x 240mm). Pp191. Not illustrated. Green boards, spine titled in gilt.

This is the 45th Anniversary Edition of this acclaimed book on the changes and losses to the English countryside bought about by intensive agriculture, with some account of the Countryside Restoration Trust, explaining what Page and others are doing to halt the decline in our wildlife. The discussion is based on Page's delightful account of his childhood in rural East Anglia in the years immediately following the Second World War. "When The Decline of an English Village was first published in 1974, it ...was greeted with ...acclaim. As a young writer, born into declining village life, Robin Page's message ...struck a chord and sounded a warning." The author "exposes greed, political ineptitude, and social and environmental indifference as the driving force behind the deterioration of village life and the communities around it. He reflects ...on his own experiences of rural life, raising sensitive topics, such as the intensification of farming, over-population, and environmental degredation in some of England's most beloved places." Robin Page concludes by identifying the most pressing problems and offering solutions, many of which he and colleagues have been putting into practice since 1993 through their Countryside Restoration Trust. Chapters include: Home and farm; The village; God; Sex and violence; The school; The brook; The shoot; Feathers and feet; Second thoughts; All change; thirty years on; Forty-five years on. An appendix discusses the Countryside Restoration Trust which the author was instrumental in founding.