Comments on too much building in Saddleworth

Nay, what’d Ammon Wrigley * 'ave said?

Well first, he’d a looked at his good book to see what th’ Almighty had to say about all this building what’s goin’ on in his beloved Saddleworth.

Aye, an’ he’d find that th’ Almighty ‘d have plenty to say too. He’d ‘appen a turned to Leviticus Chapter XXVI, where he’d a read this.

Ye shall make ye no idols nor graven image,
Neither rear you up a standing image,
Neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land,
To bow down to unto it: for I am the Lord your God.

That’d mek him think on what were goin’ on in his vales an’ on his hillsides as he loved to walk on an’ set his mind to summat he were thinkin’ o’ writin’.

He allus wanted peace an’ tranquility afore writin’, but ‘appen he’d not get any today with all this noise an’ commotion, all this getting’ an’ spendin’ as goes on I’ Saddleworth an, all round these parts of his beloved England – this part he know’d, anyroad.

It stands to reason, he’d a said, that man must have time an’ space to think, to be an’ peace an’ quiet to work out everything in ‘is ‘ead, afore he does summat he’d a rather not done.

If your goin’ to ‘ave space and peace, why, it stands to reason you shan’t go puttin’ up ‘ouses an’ shops in every little corner o’ Saddleworth, fr if you do, ‘ow art folk as live theer goin’ to fare bout the essence o’ their lives, which is to look at God’s greenery iverywheer they looks.

An’ another thing Ammon Wrigley’d a said, he’d a said all this buildin’ is too much for our little part o’ God’s acre to cope with. What folks as live too close do wi’ the stuff they’ve done with, I mean all their peelin’s an’ all their stuff as they think is o’er an’ done with, that stuff, what are they goin’ to do with all that if they live too close?

God din’t put us on this Earth to muck it up for those as ’ll come after us. He meant for us to look after what He provided, not to plunder t’treasures of His labours. An’ what are we doin’? We’re ignorin’ all his handiwork I’ Saddleworth, all fer t’ sake o’ brass and getting’ an’ spendin’. There’s more to life than that, tha knows. An’ if tha doesn’t know owt, it’s time tha read t’ good book agen afore it’s too late.

And if ye walk contrary unto me,
And will not hearken unto me;
I will bring seven times more plague upon you according to your sins.
*Ammon Wrigley was a writer who lived in Saddleworth at the turn of the century before last.
Robert L. Fielding