One of the highlights of 2005 was a few days spent on a friends’ farm in Dumfries & Galloway. It was early March, and they were in the middle of lambing. It was beautiful spring weather, and we just tagged along while they got on with the work – trying to be useful or at least to not get in the way. Fortunately our friends usually have a few WWOOFers on the farm and are used to clueless ‘townies’.

It was a fascinating glimpse into a completely different world. Farming successfully today demands a wide range of skills, from practical veterinary skills to accountancy, from sheer hard work to managing temporary staff. Our friends are doing all the right things – farming organically and trying to spread the message to visitors, diversified into ice cream, nature trails, and an adventure playground, creating local employment. They lobby tirelessly for the local economy and for organic farming. It is a rewarding way of spending your life in many ways – although financially rewarding is not one of them.

So, it was a pleasant surprise to see Wilma picking up an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List For services to the Tourist Industry in Scotland (a typical British understatement). The Honours system is a ridiculous anachronism, with politicians blatantly awarding gongs to party contributors, or seeking popular votes by awarding titles to those already richly rewarded by their professions. Which New Labour focus group decided that knicker-throwing grannies needed to be targetted this year with a knighthood for Tom Jones? – but it’s not unusual, after all.

At the end of the day, I can’t help feeling that somehow we’d be better off without the whole charade. The health of society depends on as many people as possible getting involved in work for the benefit of the wider community. I can’t believe that any of these individuals do so in the hope of getting a gong. Those who do pick up awards deservedly must look over their shoulders at some of the other names on the list, shudder, and get back to doing what they were doing in the first place.

We should all be grateful for their work – and find a better way of saying thanks.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 31st, 2005 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Greenery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.