The Manchester Greenpeace Group is inviting members of the public to join them for a walk to remember 87 years since the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass.
The walk begins at 11AM from Bowden Bridge car park in Hayfield, and ends at the bottom of William Clough.
The Kinder Scout Mass Trespass took place on 24th April 1932 in the small, Derbyshire village of Hayfield.
400 ramblers, led by the young radicals of the British Sports Workers Federation, defied the Duke of Devonshire’s gamekeepers to walk on Kinder Scout, which they could see from their factories in Stockport and Manchester, but which they were forbidden to walk on.
Police and gamekeepers, hired by the landowners, tried to stop them, and six were arrested and eventually jailed. But in 1951 they were vindicated when the Peak District became Britain’s first National Park.
The event will start with the coordinator of the Manchester Greenpeace Group, MartinPorter, whose grandfather was on the original Mass Trespass, standing where Benny Rothman stood to address the crowd in 1932 as he tells the story of the Mass Trespass.
Martin said “Greenpeace is known for using creative ways to defend the natural world, including the use of peaceful direct action. But nearly forty years before the first Greenpeace voyage, these young men were using the same tactics.
“Non-violent direct action isn’t just causing trouble or seeking publicity, it’s about campaigning in a way that shows what it is you to achieve, and challenging the opposition to stop you. That’s what Benny Rothman and the others did in 1932. It took nearly twenty years for them to achieve their objective, but, by showing what lengths the landowners would go to stop a group of ordinary people walking in open countryside, the Mass Trespass probably made the creation of the Peak District National Park inevitable.”
As well as telling the story of the Mass Trespass, the Manchester Greenpeace Group will be telling people how to get involved in some of Greenpeace’s current campaigns.
Martin continued “The work Benny and his friends started 87 years ago continues. The Peak District is protected, but most of the world’s oceans aren’t. Last week I was on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, which has just set out on a voyage from the Arctic to the Antarctic to try to make one third of the world’s oceans a marine ‘national park’. This time we haven’t got twenty years to do it in, so we’d like as many people as possible to come along and support our campaign.”
The walk is a mile and half and over rough ground with a short climb. Walkers need to bring suitable footwear and clothes for the weather conditions.
