Hippies

From the late 1960s, mid-Wales saw a great influx of hippies. Perhaps they originally came to harvest magic mushrooms or grow pot on abandoned farms, but over the decades they have revitalised this area and started many cottage industries and businesses. Their politics and radicalism are now more mainstream than they were forty years ago, so much so that this area is very eco-active and Green. The national eco-pressure group Plane Stupid (campaigning against unrestricted air travel and no tax on air fuel) was founded in Presteigne, which takes a justifiable pride in its green activism. Every month has a different eco-suggestion such as change light bulbs, buy local food, or stop using plastic bags. Every shop seems to support these gentle campaigns, and perhaps not surprisingly a local health food shop recently took over an empty shop in the town centre. This weekend is the Tour de Presteigne, the world's premier electro-bike rally, which attracts competitors - sponsored competitors - from all over the world for two days of events and races through the town and countryside lanes. The town this morning was full of cyclists and electro-cyclists, as one day last September it was full of mud-spattered racing cars from before the Great War, roaring through town on their way back from two days of muddy racing in the Radnor forests. And ordinary quiet agricultural life goes on around this. One reason I love living here is this mixture of the eccentric and the practical, and the feeling that here the eccentrics are also the practical ones.