When the barbed-wire fence began to spread across the British countryside in the late 19th century, it was not met with equanimity. Huntsmen complained of terrible accidents resulting from their horses vaulting the unexpected wire, while members of the House of Lords railed that “nothing was more calculated to destroy the amenities of country life”. What reason was there, asked Lord Thring in 1893, “why a child wandering along the roadside picking cowslips and blackberries should be liable to have its hands lacerated and its clothes torn by these fences?”
Today, barbed wire is an accepted feature of the countryside; a misanthropic aberration faded into the background of daily life. It is the symbol of a sick culture that fetishises private property rights at the expense of all that is good, humane and beautiful. That’s why I and others have taken to mass trespass.
