As a lifelong city boy, working in the Somerset countryside has been a real eye-opener for me. The idyll of living in a sleepy village, passing the local cricket ground to get a pint of foaming ale in the local pub was so appealing. Similarly, a shopping trip to the local butcher, the local baker, the local newsagent. And a loving community where everyone knew everyone else, no one needed to lock their doors at night and neighbours cared for the old and infirm. How different the reality actually is.
The first thing to say is that some villages are indeed sleepy. They are sleepy because there are no shops, no friendly local pub and actually there are many, many people who live alone, not through choice but because family members have died and others have moved many miles away. Some villages do have shops, usually of the Co-op variety and a Gastropub where the friendly boozer used to be. But in many instances village life is not what I was expecting.
The absence of young people is what struck me almost straight away, mainly young people who work. There is a morning commute to Bristol and Bath but for many people, when they look to move on, they move out. The city is certainly not quiet, but when the village is funereal, devoid of activity, what could be worse?
I am not sure the world where no one left their doors unlocked and everyone looked after each other ever existed. They certainly don’t now. I was in a small village near Bath the other day which has a pub and quite literally nothing else. The night before I was there, 14 cars had been broken into, some severely damaged and the most unlikely things had been stolen, like puncture repair equipment, sunglasses, CDs (what are THEY worth these days?) and even a Disability blue badge. The local PCSO had made a fleeting visit but gave no promises that the forensics lads would be coming out anytime soon. “Contact your insurance number. Here’s a crime reference number.” And that is the sum total of police involvement in rural areas, apart from the teams who go round catching motorists for doing 35 MPH in a 30 MPH limit.
On the edges of small towns are new build estates, a sea of concrete covering once green fields. No one asks the locals whose green and pleasant village is being paved over. The disappointment and depression is palpable. Village life is dead.
And in the villages are those who cannot go out, even if there was somewhere for them to go out to. I had no idea that village life could be so miserable. But of course, people grow old and they can grow lonely. There are some weekly clubs for those who are able-bodied enough to get along, but these are not universal and anyway they cost money. The state has abandoned these people to charities without whom they have nothing and life is not worth living.
Driving through and all seems well. Some villages remain impossibly beautiful and you do see smiling faces on the high streets. It’s not that most people aren’t doing all right but it is that a lot of people aren’t. And either no one has noticed or no one cares.
I often thought about living in the country before I realised the actual country life was far from the universal idyll I imagined and it’s not necessarily the place I’d like to grow old.
