Letter: Villages where the ravers are welcome

Sir: In reply to Party Pooper's open letter 'Dear Raver' (1 August), a couple of years ago my sister and I organised a party for about 500 people in a barn on my parents' farm in an Oxfordshire village. We partied until about 9am on Saturday morning.

We had the support of most of the village, but the following morning my parents received three complaints. Friendly relations were resumed with one complainant as soon we spoke to him. The other two were not so accommodating.

Their complaints lay in their 'inalienable right' to peace and quiet, the 'desecration' of rural life. As if their premise were, 'we moved into the country to escape from the noises and pressures of city life, and therefore don't expect noise and pressure here'. It is these same people who complain about the mess that dairy cows make on roads on their way to milking, the bleating of ewes lambing and the congestion caused by slow-moving tractors.

The complaints were received exclusively from newcomers. People who have lived in the area for a longer period recognise the increasing difficulty in making a living in it, and therefore see the advantages in alternative sources of income. I'm not suggesting that rave parties are the answer to rural poverty and unemployment, but they provide a one-off income to the landowner and are also the manifestation of urban and suburban young gaining pleasure out of the countryside. Dawn in the countryside is also beautiful to ravegoers.

And as to the correspondent's belief that the Criminal Justice Bill is there to give her the right to a sound night's sleep, I suspect that her conscience may in future be the cause of more lost sleep than the occasional rave.

Yours sincerely,

GEORGE GRIFFITH

Bristol

1 August

(Photograph omitted)