80 years on, stars join ‘right to roam’ veterans in Peak District celebration

VETERANS of the 1932 Mass Trespass in the Peak District joined ramblers and activists today to mark the 80th anniversary of the landmark “right to roam” protest.

George Haigh - who was 16 when gamekeepers tried to stop hundreds of walkers getting on to Kinder Scout in Derbyshire - said he was “very proud” to be back at the foot of the mountain to mark the occasion.

Mr Haigh, now 96, said he still remembers the day the armed keepers scuffled with ramblers from Manchester and Sheffield.

Five of those arrested on the day were later jailed.

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“It’s a long time ago but I’m very proud to be in this position,” said Mr Haigh, who is originally from Stockport but now lives in Oxfordshire.

“This is a wonderful day. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

He said he remembered dodging the gamekeepers.

“The only thing they could do was send us back the same way that we’d come,” he said. “As soon as we got out of sight, we did a detour and did the walk anyway.

“Quite a number of the keepers, although they had sticks, they also had guns. It was a bit frightening, really.”

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John Bunting, 94, from Sheffield, was 14 when he came to the mass trespass on his bike.

He described how the campaign continued after the Second World War.

He said: “We were young men fighting for our country but when the war was over we couldn’t walk on it.

“The rich and powerful and the aristocracy - they just wanted to murder the wildlife for a few years and keep us off for the rest of the time.

“And that’s what really got one or two of us going.”

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Today’s event started a week of celebrations to mark the Mass Trespass.

In took place in the Derbyshire village of Edale, which was one of the starting points of the trespassers 80 years ago.

The other was Hayfield, which is nearer Manchester.

The Kinder Scout Mass Trespass is now seen as a landmark event in the push for public access to open land, which eventually saw national parks established in England and Wales in the 1950s, starting with the Peak District in 1951.

The “right to roam” campaign culminated in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which opened up large areas of open country to walkers.

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Launching the event, broadcaster Stuart Maconie told those who gathered at the foot of Kinder Scout: “The right to walk on these mountains is an inalienable right of everybody in this country.

“These do not belong to anyone, or rather they belong to us all.”

He said: “One of my real bugbears at the moment is that we see people like David Starkey telling us history is a parade of kings and queens and the rich and the powerful.

“This is our history and the Kinder Trespass should be talked about in schools.

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“It is as significant a part of our history as any amount of knightings or any amount of coronations.”

Singer and comedian Mike Harding sang the song Manchester Rambler - which marks the trespass - with a full choir before groups of ramblers headed off to top of Kinder Scout.

Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society and president of The Ramblers, said: “Scotland has access laws which are the envy of us all.

“But, these days, gaining new access in England and Wales and protecting what we have is still a fight.

“And we never know when we’ll need a another Kinder moment.

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“The Kinder spirit must sometime be rekindled in that fight and we must work together to promote their ideals once again.”

She said: “We must never forget what they did for us and we must carry on the fight.”