The vanished green to mourn

It does not take a rocket scientist to see why Jessops, the camera store and HMV, the music store have both gone to the wall. These once mighty high-street giants have gone into administration and of course the reason is the technology revolution.

I sometimes wonder if our revolution felt the same as the industrial revolution which took place in the second half of the 18th Century, along with the Acts of Enclosure that changed the landscape forever.

Whilst cottage industry, rural dwellers were made to leave (as economic migrants) their quiet villages and set up home in the big cities, their old haunts and their way of self-sufficiency was being taken from them with the removal of common land and the important rights of use that went along with it.

Of course, the erstwhile life was a subsistence life. Even today, with all the advantages of 21st century husbandry a Scottish crofter can be not much more prosperous than Jethro Tull, and must mostly seek other forms of income in order to survive.

Cottage industry has returned as a result of our revolution, but it is more a function of our economy than of lifestyle choice. We can simply have more of what we want because in relative terms, our disposable income is considerable. The choices are legion and our way of life has become a confusing search for the best holiday on Trip Advisor or the best Tablet on Cnet. The jumper that Sophie Grabol wears in The Killing was originally hand-knitted in the Faroe Isles and for all I know, still is, but the company that sells it, Gudrun and Gudrun is now a world-wide enterprise. It's an example of some incredible changes in the way one person with a pair of knitting needles has effectively tapped into a global market.

What are the lessons to be learned from the demise of shops such as Jessops and HMV? Well, obviously, don't invest in a product that is vulnerable to technological advance on the scale we are experiencing at the moment. In a way, these stores are like the music hall acts who toured the same 20 minute spot for their whole careers, or at least a few seasons, doing the same jokes or tricks or whatever. In the old days, you went into the hardware store and bought a toaster. Or you ordered a telephone from BT. Or you bought your knickers from Marks and Spencer. In those days, you got toasters made by Morphy Richards and the phone was the same phone everyone had because only BT let you have one.

Strangely, only Marks and Spencer seem to have hung on to the knicker monopoly and perhaps that is why you might still see them, in one shape or form, for some years to come.

As for the future, it may well find a clue in the past since the technology revolution has torn down the fences and monopolies of old, perhaps signalling the beginning of a return to some of the better aspects of the old ways of life;

Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours
Free as spring clouds and wild as summer flowers
Is faded all - a hope that blossomed free,
And hath been once, no more shall ever be
Inclosure came and trampled on the grave
Of labour's rights and left the poor a slave
And memory's pride ere want to wealth did bow
Is both the shadow and the substance now
The sheep and cows were free to range as then
Where change might prompt nor felt the bonds of men
Cows went and came, with evening morn and night,
To the wild pasture as their common right
And sheep, unfolded with the rising sun
Heard the swains shout and felt their freedom won

John Clare.