To me East Sussex is one of the few English counties that are mostly uncorrupted by 'too much' modern life.

It's as though the people here have resisted senseless change, rather like they once resisted Hitler's Luftwaffe (of which they saw rather too much of), or Willian the Conqueror — though knowing the few ES's I do know they probably resisted Harold as well.

Such is their spirit. A bit definant.

Like Lewes launching its own currency, and like the landscape itself: the sweeping South Downs that make their way across this landscape as though they were brushing all else aside: gentle but certainly self-assured, nobody's fool and nobody's slave. Quite how the EC will integrate this seat of ancient demos I'm really not sure.

More recently the South Downs have been protected as a site of natural beauty. Which of course the locals would never have seen spoilt with or without this new decree.