Community Spirit (WIP)
Created | Updated Jul 4, 2009
The village newsletter is delivered once a month, usually in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. There’s eight A4 pages of it: ie two folded sheets of A3 with two staples at the centre fold – and sometimes a few loose sheets with adverts and forms of entry for things like produce and craft shows.
Generally I give pages one and two (letters section) a quick scan before consigning it to the recycling bin. June’s arrived last weekend. Page one carried all the usual: an ongoing protest about a proposed wind turbine planned for the western edge of the village, a call for ‘new blood’ on the Village Hall Committee, a report from the Quarry Liaison Group. All riveting stuff.
One letter caught my eye. It’s from a newcomer to the village and it says they had thought this was a lovely village but now they’re not so sure. Someone nicked the plant pots from outside their house and they’re disheartened by the lack of community spirit indicated by this despicable act.
Well, their house is right next to the pub. It might have been anyone. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a villager wot dun it...
Oh, but that’s not all. Dog muck (in capitals) is being left in their doorway every day of the week. “Where is the community spirit in this?????” the letter finishes.
Now that is nasty. That sounds deliberate. ‘Every day of the week’ can’t be an accident, can it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s got me thinking. The newcomer was hoping for community spirit. They’re all after that, I think. That’s one reason people move to villages. The newsletter, as far as I can tell is produced entirely by people who’ve moved to the village – working hard to generate this elusive community spirit. But there are problems: people not staying for long, not knowing each other very well – or when they do get to know each other, not liking each other very much.
I remember when I was a child in my mother’s shop, on the High Street. A woman who was on the parish council came in and talked authoritatively about this and that while my mother rang up her goods. When she left, one of the ladies who worked in the shop made some disparaging remarks about how that woman thought she knew everything and she’d not lived here 5 minutes! The woman had been around as long as I could remember – and that seemed a lot longer than 5 minutes. It turned out that she’d lived in the village for about 50 years.
Times have changed though. The community used to be people born and bred in the area. The outsiders were everybody else. Now the people who can point to generations of their family in the parish records and the grave yard are a minority group. Their acceptance or rejection is unregarded – like a small, dying tribe with tribal attitudes that can safely be ignored. They might as well be the outsiders themselves. Most of them are old. Their children are probably trying to generate community spirit somewhere across the other side of the country right now – or the other side of the world.
It must be sad for them. Their community fragmented. They miss the old ones and don’t understand the new ones with their funny ways and funny accents. You don’t hear the old stories any more. People die – and their stories die with them. There used to be lots of stories – like comfortable old clothes, that got aired regularly:
How the local land owner made them pay for gathering fire wood sticks in ‘his’ woods;
How old Dick, who worked as a gardener at the hall, used to hate it when the young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, came to stay because they were a pair of unruly brats and he couldn’t clip them round the ear;
How the boys from our village used to walk, run and ride to the next village to meet their sweethearts on Saturday afternoons - our fathers and uncles, laughing and showing off, clowning and doing summersaults;
How hard everyone had to work at harvest – and the celebrations after;
How the feather bed had burst when they were laying out poor old Mrs H, and she looked just like a chicken;
How Vera’s wicked old dad used to tell her grandmother to get up and let the dog sit down;
How Mr S, the blacksmith, would carry little Martin home from the smithy on his shoulders after work, his powerful voice booming out verses of “The Village Blacksmith”
All the stories that tie neighbours and families together. All gone now – the cosy atmosphere and familiar voices. They didn’t talk much about community when they had a strong one. It was one of those things you could take for granted.
But now we have a newsletter – and all those people who don’t know each other very well, desperately trying to generate the old community spirit that was left behind when we all got mobile.
It would be nice if they could do it, but I have my doubts. It’s hard for transient populations to create community spirit. It’s a pale and flimsy imitation of the one we used to have when everyone was connected to everyone else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s enough thinking. The letter’s made me sad. I hope the writer was just exaggerating about the daily dog muck.
Generally I give pages one and two (letters section) a quick scan before consigning it to the recycling bin. June’s arrived last weekend. Page one carried all the usual: an ongoing protest about a proposed wind turbine planned for the western edge of the village, a call for ‘new blood’ on the Village Hall Committee, a report from the Quarry Liaison Group. All riveting stuff.
One letter caught my eye. It’s from a newcomer to the village and it says they had thought this was a lovely village but now they’re not so sure. Someone nicked the plant pots from outside their house and they’re disheartened by the lack of community spirit indicated by this despicable act.
Well, their house is right next to the pub. It might have been anyone. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a villager wot dun it...
Oh, but that’s not all. Dog muck (in capitals) is being left in their doorway every day of the week. “Where is the community spirit in this?????” the letter finishes.
Now that is nasty. That sounds deliberate. ‘Every day of the week’ can’t be an accident, can it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s got me thinking. The newcomer was hoping for community spirit. They’re all after that, I think. That’s one reason people move to villages. The newsletter, as far as I can tell is produced entirely by people who’ve moved to the village – working hard to generate this elusive community spirit. But there are problems: people not staying for long, not knowing each other very well – or when they do get to know each other, not liking each other very much.
I remember when I was a child in my mother’s shop, on the High Street. A woman who was on the parish council came in and talked authoritatively about this and that while my mother rang up her goods. When she left, one of the ladies who worked in the shop made some disparaging remarks about how that woman thought she knew everything and she’d not lived here 5 minutes! The woman had been around as long as I could remember – and that seemed a lot longer than 5 minutes. It turned out that she’d lived in the village for about 50 years.
Times have changed though. The community used to be people born and bred in the area. The outsiders were everybody else. Now the people who can point to generations of their family in the parish records and the grave yard are a minority group. Their acceptance or rejection is unregarded – like a small, dying tribe with tribal attitudes that can safely be ignored. They might as well be the outsiders themselves. Most of them are old. Their children are probably trying to generate community spirit somewhere across the other side of the country right now – or the other side of the world.
It must be sad for them. Their community fragmented. They miss the old ones and don’t understand the new ones with their funny ways and funny accents. You don’t hear the old stories any more. People die – and their stories die with them. There used to be lots of stories – like comfortable old clothes, that got aired regularly:
How the local land owner made them pay for gathering fire wood sticks in ‘his’ woods;
How old Dick, who worked as a gardener at the hall, used to hate it when the young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, came to stay because they were a pair of unruly brats and he couldn’t clip them round the ear;
How the boys from our village used to walk, run and ride to the next village to meet their sweethearts on Saturday afternoons - our fathers and uncles, laughing and showing off, clowning and doing summersaults;
How hard everyone had to work at harvest – and the celebrations after;
How the feather bed had burst when they were laying out poor old Mrs H, and she looked just like a chicken;
How Vera’s wicked old dad used to tell her grandmother to get up and let the dog sit down;
How Mr S, the blacksmith, would carry little Martin home from the smithy on his shoulders after work, his powerful voice booming out verses of “The Village Blacksmith”
All the stories that tie neighbours and families together. All gone now – the cosy atmosphere and familiar voices. They didn’t talk much about community when they had a strong one. It was one of those things you could take for granted.
But now we have a newsletter – and all those people who don’t know each other very well, desperately trying to generate the old community spirit that was left behind when we all got mobile.
It would be nice if they could do it, but I have my doubts. It’s hard for transient populations to create community spirit. It’s a pale and flimsy imitation of the one we used to have when everyone was connected to everyone else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s enough thinking. The letter’s made me sad. I hope the writer was just exaggerating about the daily dog muck.
