Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman on Jericho:

‘I bristle with indignation when this vivid and interesting part of the city is under siege. I lament the loss of every curious corner, I deplore the creeping invasion by the forces of Greedi-Build plc, I abominate the disappearance of old landmarks and familiar views ... as with all places that we cherish for their value to us as human beings, we have to be ready to defend them against those who can understand only the value of money. And unfortunately, people like that are in the ascendancy now; we live in a theocracy whose god is Profit. If Jesus were alive now, it wouldn't be ritualistic Sabbath-observance he'd be criticising, but the worship of money: "The market was made for man, and not man for the market," I think he'd say. And that remark would make him just as popular as the previous one did.

I used part of Jericho and the canal in my trilogy His Dark Materials, because people who lived and worked on the water, and the network of canals that spread through the whole kingdom, were useful for my story ... But I didn't realise how much the present-day life of the canal was under threat until recently, when the boatyard business came to a head. I've always enjoyed walking along the canal, and looking at the activity - useful, human-scale, craft-based, untidy, interesting - in the boatyard, with the campanile of St. Barnabas watching over it, and the calm water in front.

Reflecting on the idea that ‘All that useful social activity’ may have to be ‘done away with, because it was not making sufficient profit’ Pullman observes: ‘Well, we've gone wrong somehow in the way we live. Jericho is a place where it ought to be possible to maintain a working boatyard, to give a meaning and a focus to the life of the canal. If it does go, something irreplaceable will go with it.’

Philip Pullman, 'The Bohemian Republic of Jericho: Philip Pullman on a place made to human measure', The Jericho Echo, Issue 60/July 2006