1975 And All That

Country Smallholding is 45 this month. To celebrate, Jeremy Hobson takes a look at some of the changes — both good and bad — to small-scale farming over that near half-century

- Jeremy Hobson

Some readers may have enjoyed the light-hearted classic 1066 And All That which, although written in the 1930s by WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman, is still in print today. In it the authors classified some historical events into Good and Bad things — and gave their tongue-in-cheek reasons for coming to such conclusions. While never forgetting that the book is poking gentle fun at the style favoured by (then contemporary) serious writers, reading it does, however, make one realise just how history has helped to mould and change today’s world. Since 1975 — the year in which this magazine first appeared — the ensuing decades have also seen many changes in the world of smallholding.

Forty-five years ago, while the idea of being self-sufficient (or at least growing one’s own) using organic methods and escaping the manic modern life appealed to some, to others it appeared a bit of a hippy fad and those who wished for such a lifestyle were sometimes regarded as oddballs. It was an attitude no doubt fuelled by the amusing and invariably ill-fated antics portrayed in the TV comedy series The Good Life which was first aired on TV screens in 1975, the year of Country Smallholding’s (then known as Practical Self-Sufficiency) birth.

Thankfully most changes — in both the public’s attitude and in smallholding practice itself — have, using the 1066 And All That analogy devised by Sellar and Yeatman, subsequently proved to be Good rather than Bad.

THE HIPPY INFLUENCE