Trespassers Will Be Celebrated
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-04-22Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 13 →
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JAKE JACKSON, SO supporter and member of the socialist walking and climbing club Red Rope, looks at the Kinder Tresspass.
"It was a great day for the rambling movement. After a hard day's work in Manchester the finest rambling country was closed to us because a few individuals wanted to shoot grouse a few days a year. Our united action won the day and helped to torce the landowners to negotiate."
That is Bernard Rothman describing the mass tresspass of the moorland of Kinder Scout in Derbyshire, the Duke of Devonshire's 'private garden' and still privately owned.
Bernard was jailed for four months for his part in the tresspass. That was in 1932.
This weekend on April 24, working people from all the country will assemble in the North Derbyshire village of Hayfield to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Mass Tresspass on Kinder Scout.
50 years ago the tresspass was planned to start in ) TRE Mayfield, but the police prevented it. They tried to serve an injunction on Bernard, but he evaded them on his bicycle. Undeterred by the police, the walkers moved off towards Kinder, stopping for a meeting in a quarry on the way. They agreed to stick together, and offer no violence to gamekeepers or police.
Though they were met with violence from gamekeepers on their climb up, they, brushed them aside, meeting up with other ramblers from Sheffield and Stockport at the summit.
On their return to Hayfield they were met by the police, who arrested six of them. They were brought before a jury packed with landowners at Derby, and h Anniversary were convicted of riotously assembling to disturb the public'. The unfortunate six were given jail sentences totalling 17 months.
Even so it wasn't till 1949 that a law was introduced allowing some access. And today there are still large expanses of land in the Peak District, Wales and Scotland where there is no public access; over 1,000 square miles are held by the Ministry of Defence.
Red Rope will be holding a meeting over this weekend and discussing the question of a socialist policy on land and access. If you live near Kinder Scout, why not grab your SOs and come out for a walk?
Red Rope can be contacted at 46 Ada House, Pritchards Road, London E2. Phone 01-739 6668.