"A new job in late middle age prompts reflection. When that job is to represent 2,500 people across varied rural communites under pressure from a fast-changing world, a serious examination of how I got here is required.
I grew up in comfort in West Sussex, in a family that had prospered in the industrial age. My great-grandfather came from a Yorkshire family whose building firm had constructed, among other things, the sewers of Bradford in the 1840s. He took the firm global, and eventually made his fortune finding oil in Mexico just before the first world war. I used to be embarrassed, as a green-minded person and subsequently a Green Party candidate, that I am here because of oil. But that was the beginning of the oil age, when it seemed like a good idea. Now we have come to the end of that age, and we need the same level of ingenuity employed by those Victorian industrialists in order to make the transition to a fossil-fuel free economy. Many of the measures which are needed for rapid decarbonisation – less rushing about, a greater sharing of resources and respect for the other species we share our world with - can also lead to happier, more peaceful and more fulfilling lives.
I studied English at Oxford from 1977 to 1980, taught in Africa for a year, and then spent six years as a journalist on the Economist and the Independent, before moving to Jamaica in 1988.
Living on an island sharpened my environmental awareness. Not far behind the famous beauty of the Jamaican beaches were mountains of rubbish; it was obvious that the waste generated by the island’s vibrant tourist industry had nowhere to go. The bauxite industry had destroyed some of the island’s most beautiful interiors, and although iridescent fish swam right up to the beaches, the owners of the glass-bottomed boats could tell that the coral reefs were suffering. As in many communities, the older generations often had the answers. The grandparents and great-grandparents of the students in our children’s school practised methods – composting, reuse, upcycling – that I was only just discovering.
When I came back to England with two small daughters in 1997, I found myself drawn to Oxfordshire rather than Sussex. I rented in Standlake for a year. I had read about Asthall Manor in the Oxford Times and one day, early for a meeting with a friend in Burford, I drove down into the beautiful valley below. The decaying Manor was hidden behind high walls with no front gate. The whole estate went at auction for more than I could have paid, but a few weeks later, the buyers decided they didn’t want the house, and sold it on to me with just the land around it.
Since then, I have become embedded in West Oxfordshire, and hardly leave it! I have tried to make Asthall Manor and its garden a place of welcome and retreat, growing food for a local crop share and restoring habitats, while also organising sculpture exhibitions."
By Cllr. Rosie Pearson
Published in Asthall Parish Magazine (July 2022)
Asthall Parish serving Asthal, Asthall Leigh, Fordwells, Field Assarts & Worsham
“Only Connect” said EM Forster, and I’ve thought a lot about these words since becoming a District Councillor in May.
One kind of connection that needs to be made is between the different branches of the ward. Officially, it is called “Brize Norton and Shilton” though this seems unfair, and I refer to it whenever I can as “Brize Norton, Shilton, Asthall and Swinbrook” as those are the four parishes. (Of course, as the cover of this publication attests, there are many other villages within these parishes.)
If you look at a District boundaries map, the shape of this ward looks like an ungainly gremlin, its legs either side of Carterton and its arms reaching up north of the A40 into the Cotswolds. Those areas inside the Cotswolds National Landscape (formerly AONB) of which I am now a board member, and those outside face very different challenges. Brize Norton in particular is a target for some of the large-scale development which is being imposed upon the County, and therefore upon the District. But those who live in areas north of the A40 which are protected by AONB status will still find their rivers, their air quality and their transport links affected by developments nearby. Only connect.
I also want to connect my council work with the work I was already doing. We are blessed, in West Oxfordshire, with some innovative and energetic organisations like the Wychwood Forest Trust, Wild Oxfordshire, Bridewell Organic Gardens and Oxfordshire Treescapes. I was very happy when, at a reception at on form for the Wychwood Forest Trust, I looked around and suddenly discovered that five of my fellow-councillors were in attendance, as supporters of the Trust. These organisations are bursting with expertise, and if they can be connected with the right parts of the Council, partnerships can perhaps be forged which could quicken the pace of change.
Finally, we need to make the connection between short term and long term challenges. They are often presented as a choice: adequate housing or protection for nature? Food production or more trees? Thriving businesses or less pollution? But it is the job of politics to look simultaneously at the most overarching and the most particular levels. Even as we attempt to tackle a crisis as huge and existential as climate change, we must bear in mind the tangible problems that can be solved at the same time: draughty homes, congested commutes, polluted air and rivers. Many of the measures which are needed for rapid decarbonisation can also lead to more stable, fulfilling and independent living.
Only connect, and we might stand a better chance.
Cllr. Rosie Pearson