When we went to Stockholm a few years ago, a friend took us to a cool little camp area by a lake in some nearby woods - it had a basic fire-pit surrounded by benches, and a big box full of chopped wood.

The little camp exists as part of something they call 'allemansrätten', or every man's right: it's basically a freedom to roam rule that makes a lot of public or privately owned areas accessible to the public. So this little camp was open to absolutely anyone to use.

There are loads of similar areas and as I understand it, they are kept clean and maintained by the public (though some are also maintained by local authorities). When we arrived at this one, it was absolutely spotless (and we left it as we found it), and I'm told that's the norm.

The wood store had been replenished - again, this is usually done by people who have just used it, replenishing what they have used, or just being considerate if they notice it runs low. We stayed for a few hours, cooked some food on the fire, played in the lake, tidied up, left.

I said to my friend at the time (he's a Brit who moved to Sweden years ago) that I would love more areas like this in the UK, but that they'd definitely not be treated with the same sort of respect. There would be burnt-up Stella cans in the fire-pit, crisp packets blowing about.

The wood store would be empty and people would have covered the benches in graffiti and kicked them off their brackets - maybe even burnt them. Because, for some reason, we just don't seem to want to allow ourselves to have nice things, here.

Dunno if it's a weird sense of guilt about just allowing ourselves something nice, or some sort of self-flagellation where we're actually preserving our sense of purity by absolutely fucking trashing the nice things we've been given. I've just seen it very often, here.

(Obviously I'm not saying that EVERY area of beauty gets trashed - I'm from Derbyshire, I've spent plenty of time in unspoilt places - but just that if something is set up like that camp in Sweden, specifically made for people to enjoy and share together... it often ends badly.)

Anyway, I've mentioned this specific comparison/theory to a few people since that Sweden trip and been told I'm wrong, or that I've just been to/lived in some shit places (there's definitely some truth to that).

Anyway: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rowdy-magaluf-crowd-leave-lake-district-shuddering-nzfxmfvgb

See also: https://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2020/06/26/yorkshire-dales-bosses-plead-with-visitors-not-to-trash-the-national-park#

If you're having to "plead with visitors not to trash the national park" then maybe we have issues.

I live in Southend-on-Sea, these days. You know, this Southend-on-Sea:

The UK has some of the most amazing countryside, and the number of people who are happy to use it and then just leave their shit everywhere, with little to no consideration for those who would like to use it after them, is just so disappointing.