Page 11 - Issue 67 Online

MANEA MATTERS
WATERS MANEA MATTERS

history and its struggles into context and the watercourse that crosses it, draining the land
work is an immensely pleasurable, if scary, read. but not robbing it of its heart.
There’s an irony in this sign and this fencing I’ve lived here and hereabouts for close on forty
with its stark warning about social distancing, years now. I shall never know it. But I shall
set against the backdrop of the Washes as they always respect it and those who have the heart
stretch away. Only the coots own them now. to work with it. Its beauty? That truly is in the
We’re stopped from going somewhere that we eye of the beholder, if they cared to look. I see
have dug deep into the fen to create, at the paradise, every day.
expense of those whose land it was when the
Adventurers started to set out their stall. When David Learner
the reclaimed land was parcelled out after the
creation of Vermuyden’s second cut it wasn’t (As you will see from his opening sentence, David
the fenman who was invited back; it was wealth wrote this article on Deadline Day for this issue.)
and power at the behest of the king.
Scars run deeper than the cuts. This is an
unforgiving land, but its riches lie deep in its
history and its blood pumps through every

DEADLINE for Issue 68 – Friday 19 February 2021 PAGE 11
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