Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out – Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Some say “The Scissorman” is a real person. Others that he is merely being used as a literary device to represent The Profit Motive. Who knows? All that is certain is that whatever anyone tells you in posh technical language what’s really happening at Oswestry is a fight between those who want to conserve History and those who want to make a personal profit, the bigger the better. Yet how can one know that’s true when it’s easy to photograph History but impossible to photograph The Profit Motive?
Or is it?
That’s Balfarg Henge, Fife in the middle. The rest is The Profit Motive.
No, Oswestry Hill Fort isn’t going to look like that, not imminently anyway. (So no claims we’re spreading misinformation or using scare tactics please, we’re just showing how ruthless Money can be if left unopposed). What is yet to be revealed is the degree of success the Campaigners will have in preventing the Hill Fort looking anything like that. Half as bad or a tenth as bad would be an outrage. Yet The Profit Motive has given zero indication it gives a damn about History or is willing to exercise self-restraint – it would simply walk away if it did – so it all depends on the strength of those who believe the Hill Fort’s current setting should be kept entirely sacrosanct.
The Heritage Journal 
4 comments
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27/03/2014 at 08:25
Diana Baur
Good to be reminded of what might be if people let up on the fight to leave our children with enough evidence and messages from the past to be able to manage, understand and enjoy their futures.
27/03/2014 at 09:10
Tish Farrell
In the (distant) past when monuments/sacred places were developed afresh, maybe hundreds of years after they had been abandoned and by quite different cultures (I’m thinking here of Breton churches built over Neolithic long barrows, or the Roman temple on the flanks of Maiden Castle) the newcomers showed by what they built there that they continued to respect the place, the past, and something of what it had meant to the people who had been there before them. Seems like a mark of civilized behaviour – showing respect. Are you listening Mr. Paterson? Or has the Scissorman cut off your ears?
27/03/2014 at 13:23
Diana Baur
Well said Tish.
A Civilized society is sometimes measured by the way that they treat their young and their old. We’re failing pretty dismally on that front, and its getting worse.
Also the level of corruption that has crept in alongside the manic rush to be financially ok following the reckless (and continued) gambling by bankers et al, is mind-blowing.
One would have hoped that one could rely on the integrity of “respected” members of society such as ministers and members of parliament to work hard to counteract these trends, but, in Shropshire, obviously not.
29/03/2014 at 09:11
Barry
The council will not listen, the development will happen in some form or another, a few years down the line they will finish it off without asking anyone. The great money swindle continues.