The curtain will go up next year on a community play to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Kinder Trespass - thanks to a £29,900 award from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
Volunteers are being asked to come forward to join the project, marking the mass trespass event in 1932, which became a landmark in the long public campaign for access to the English countryside.
High Peak Community Arts has been granted the money to work on the play, beginning in January, with performances set for July 2007.
The project will take place in New Mills and surrounding areas of the High Peak of Derbyshire, with the final play performed in New Mills.
Jill Turner from the High Peak Community Arts group is urging people to come forward and join the venture.
“We will be working with young people and community groups creating songs and stories reflecting the importance of the Mass Trespass and how it is relevant today," she said. “We would love people to come forward and be part of this fantastic project about their local heritage, and its importance in the bigger picture of access to our environment.”
A news item from the Guardian newspaper archive, of Monday, April 25, 1932, reported:
"Four or five hundred ramblers, mostly from Manchester, trespassed in mass on Kinder Scout to-day.
"They fought a brief but vigorous hand-to-hand struggle with a number of keepers specially enrolled for the occasion. This they won with ease, and then marched to Ashop Head, where they held a meeting before returning in triumph to Hayfield.
"Their triumph was short-lived, for there the police met them, halted them, combed their ranks for suspects, and detained five men. Another man had been detained earlier in the day."
Wikipedia, the multi-lingual free content Internet encyclopaedia, reports:
The mass trespass of Kinder Scout was a notable act of willful trespass by ramblers. It was undertaken at Kinder Scout, in the Peak District of England, on 24 April 1932, to highlight weaknesses in English law of the time. This denied walkers in England or Wales access to areas of open county, and to public footpaths which, in previous ages (and today), formed public rights of way. Political and conservation activist Benny Rothman was one of the principal leaders.
A commemorative plaque now marks the start of the trespass at Bowden Bridge quarry near Hayfield (which is now a popular area for ramblers). The trespass proceeded via William Clough to the plateau of Kinder Scout, where there were violent scuffles with gamekeepers. Several ramblers were arrested and some would receive jail sentences of 18 months, merely for diverging a few yards from a right-of-way.
The mass trespass had a far-reaching impact, some of which is still playing out today. Eventually, changes in the law would allow all citizens access to public footpaths, regardless of whether they crossed private land. This culminated in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which legislates a limited right to roam over scheduled access land.
Ewan MacColl, the poet and folk singer, celebrated these events in his song The Manchester Rambler, and it is also the subject of a song on Chumbawamba's 2005 album A Singsong and a Scrap.
The Kinder Trespass led to legislation, in 1949, to establish the National Parks and, in 2000, to walkers' rights over open country and common land.
Those taking part will work alongside professional artistes, using archive material, oral history, folk music and guest speakers, to reveal more about the impact of the event.
They will also talk to representatives from groups, such as cavers, ramblers, landowners, legislators, the Wildlife Trust and the National Park Authority.
HLF’s regional manager Emma Sale said: "This play will involve lots of people in the community and encourage them to reflect and celebrate a local event, which had such long term effects on the fabric of British life.
"The present public debate includes issues such as responsible access to land, management of the countryside and environmental sustainability. Such issues are at the cutting edge of green tourism and continuing access to heritage, and this play will has the potential to create thought-provoking and original ideas."
To find out more, or get involved, call High Peak Community Arts on 01663 744516.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) enables communities to celebrate, look after and learn more about our diverse heritage. From our great museums and historic buildings to local parks and beauty spots or recording and celebrating traditions, customs and history, HLF grants open up our nation’s heritage for everyone to enjoy, and has supported more than 16,600 projects, allocating more than £3.3 billion across the UK.
Since 1994, more than 1,250 projects and £147.8 million of HLF funding has benefited children and young people in East Midlands.
For more information about HLF, visit the website, or call Sarah Barnwell at the Heritage Lottery Fund on 20 7591 6046, or email sarahb1@hlf.org.uk or call Helen Griffee on 07787 793541 or email heleng2@hlf.org.uk.