'Hmm. But don't you think this'll provoke Ralph to rant on about the historical inevitability of the dictatorship of the proletariat?'
'Well, it might. But you've got to tell it how it was. The point is it's nonsense to talk about whether the English village can regenerate itself. The truth is most English villages in the twenty-first century are safer and more prosperous than they've ever been during the previous two and a half thousand years.' I shovel the pepper strips onto an ovenproof dish. 'What the English village is like these days is an altogether different question.'
'Did you know, by the way,' – Maggie reclines on a chair and puts her feet up on the adjoining one – 'that when Bill Bryson travelled through small town America, he invented the imaginary perfect town. He called it Amalgam. The question is, what does the English village Amalgam look like?'
'OK, now you're talking. Hang on a sec.' The rack above the baking salmon gives a clatter as I push in the dish brimming with red vegetables (you hardly notice the spots of blood) then chuck the oven gloves on top of the bread-maker, and join Maggie at the table. 'Well, I reckon you can draw up a list of things which will help a village along the road to perfection. By the way, I think Bill Bryson said that in his search along the back roads of the US, none of his little towns had got all the positive things. That's why he called the one where he'd like to live "Amalgam". It could exist only if you amalgamated bits from lots of different places.'
'OK, so it's pretty obvious, nowhere's perfect.'
'Sure. The thing is with the English village, some of those positive bits can't be acquired no matter how hard you try.'
'What, like thatched cottages or Victorian vicarages?'
'Exactly. Of course, not everybody wants to live in a cute zone. But a lot do. Personally, I'd rather look out on Cotswold stone cottages than concrete lockups in Liverpool Eight. And a pretty village can mean jobs – in the tourist business for a start – and jobs mean young people are more likely to stay rather than leaving the village to the oldies.'
'Packingham as opposed to Hogsthorpe you mean.'
'That's right. The good folk of Packingham-in-Stayle, as we know, have cashed in on their good looks. Though I have to say, for me, the place is like the young woman who realises her face and figure can be her fortune but then ends up as a spoilt brat of a supermodel.'
'That's a bit unfair to Packingham.'
'Possibly. For me, it's so commercialised that you have a job to make out the pretty, cute parts which are supposed to be its attraction in the first place.'
'OK, we agree to differ. So what's the next winning feature in the English village contest?'
'It's where they are geographically. For instance, Newthorpe's only four miles from an M1 junction, whereas it takes hours to reach poor old Hogsthorpe along zigzaggy narrow roads. Result, Newthorpe has got at least some jobs on tap, while the youth of Hogsthorpe leave as soon as they're old enough to buy a ticket for the weekly freedom bus to Scunthorpe and points south.'
'Hmm, that's sad.'
'It is.' I pause to top up my cranberry juice. 'Then, next on the list is a heart.'
Maggie prompts me: 'You said you thought that's something Condicote's got with its village green.'
'The famous Pound, yes. A village green, a market square, they're not just somewhere where people go and meet and talk, they're also somewhere you can take in at a single glance and say to yourself, "This is Condicote, this is what I belong to". Aston Magna or Hogsthorpe haven't got that kind of heart. They haven't got any kind of physical centre.'
'And Newthorpe?'
'It doesn't have anything like that…'
'What about that pub?'
'Not everybody goes to pubs. But Newthorpe could give itself a heart, a sense of its own identity if it looked to its Lawrence heritage.'
'So does that mean you think Swinbrook scores on this one?'
'Yes, I think it does. I suppose I'm saying that a bit of history can give a village something that people feel is theirs, that they all belong to, whether it's the history of Unity Valkyrie Mitford and her extraordinary sisters, or an Iron Age henge and a Roman road like Condicote's got.'
'So why don't either of us want to live in Swinbrook?'
'I think, because it's lopsided.'
'Now you've lost me.'
'Hang on, just got to check the croute's not turned to cinders.' Twenty seconds of clattering and delicate prodding show it hasn't, so I return and on we go. 'Lopsided. I mean it's too much of one thing. In Swinbrook's case, it's too precious. The village is like a museum occupied by millionaires. There's no variety. And how many villages in the whole country have got a philanthropic squire, like Condicote, turning down an income just to preserve the social balance of the village.'
Maggie nods. 'Leafield, I guess, is lopsided for different reasons.'
'It is, it is. You've got the point exactly. Leafield is a city suburb posing as a village. It seems to be end-to end suburban houses and nothing else.'
'But at least you can say about Leafield that there's somewhere for people to work. It's not just a theme park for retirees, as Ralph might say.'
'True, though most people who live there don't work in the village itself.' I stop and ponder for a second or two. 'I'm always impressed by Newthorpe on that score. It lost its coal mine, but built an industrial estate on the old pit site.'
'OK, what about shops?'
'And post offices. Don't forget post offices. Yes, the death of the village shop cum PO is the story of the death of many an English village, or so it's commonly thought. Up springs Tesco and the dusty cornflakes packets next to the pensions counter are suddenly gone, and there instead is a chintz sofa in somebody's front room with only a picture window and a house name like "The Old Post Office" left to hint at what it used to be. And without the shop and John Major's postmistress biking into the mist, the village becomes just another estate of houses that happened to sit in the countryside. That's the theory on how villages die, anyway.'
'What do you mean, "the theory"?'
'You see, I don't think shops shutting actually causes a village to die. I suspect that in a lot of places, the last shop closing is just one more nail in the village's coffin. Or should I say, in some villages' coffins – the ones that were going to die anyway, because there were no jobs in remote parts of the countryside any more, or because in the less isolated villages the jobs are in a nearby town, and the village just becomes a dormitory.'
'But what about our friend Chris and the folk of Blockley?'
'Well, Blockley's not a dying village. It's got a lot going for it. It's pretty, it's got a heart, a village green. But Blockley certainly moves up the ideal village scale because of its shop-cafe-post office.'
'So you're not suggesting a shop or two aren't important to village life.'
'No. They obviously are. And this, of course, brings us on to one of the most important things a village can have.'
'A sense of community?'
'Ooh no, bad word. Censored. It doesn't mean anything. What Blockley's got is fiery spirits.'
'Paraffin!' she grins.
I ignore her. 'Fiery spirit, I'll have you know, is a technical term sociologists use for people living in villages who care about the place and who have the oomph and organisational ability – very important – to improve it and keep it thriving.'
'The food you get at that cafe of Chris's, it's something you want to keep going back for,' Maggie muses looking into the far distance. 'The whole place is… professional, it's the only word.'
'Chris would love to hear you say that. But of course not everywhere is as lucky as Blockley to have people living there with those sorts of talents.' Maggie nods. 'And there's another thing that's really important in deciding whether a village can make a go of it or not.'
'What's that?' asks Maggie. 'Let me guess. How big they are.'
'Exactly. Some villages are just too small to be able to score enough of these points. Take Condicote for example. It'
s got a solid ranking on the prettiness scale, heart coming out of its ears and a mix of people living there. But it's no more than a couple of dozen houses. So, in the first place, it couldn't support a shop or jobs. And, then, it only takes a few people to move there who don't muck in and the character of the whole place starts to shift. It's the little villages that are really vulnerable.'
'I can smell something… is it burning?'
'Jeeeees!' and I shoot into the kitchen, wrench open the oven door and snatch out our supper. 'S'OK,' I yell. 'Just caught it in time.'
Once we've both got outside a half-dozen forkfuls of croute, peppers and fish, Maggie asks, 'So you seem to have all the material here for your unarmed tussle with Ralph. But are you sure you'll be able to remember it and snap it out in the heat of combat?'
'Ahh, I thought I'd use my old exam technique. The key phrase is: "PC Jobs' heart is like a lopsided shop in Venice which is fiery and large."'
'What on earth are you drivelling on about?'
'The way to remember stuff in an exam is to have a single phrase or sentence that incorporates all your key ideas. "PC JOBS' HEART is like a LOPSIDED SHOP in VENICE which is FIERY and LARGE" is an easy way to remember the nine things which move a village along the scale from dump – zero score, to perfection – nine out of nine.'
'OK, OK. What's "PC""'
'PRETTY and COMMUNICATIONS. Then the rest are JOBS, HEART…'
'And Venice?'
'Packingham, Venice of the south-west, example of over-the-top commercialisation.'
'Right. Got it. So let's do a practical test. How does Stow-on-the-Wold rate on this scale?'
'Great idea. I'll grab a bit of paper and mark them off.' I scoop in the last bite of salmon en croute and take up a ballpoint. 'The pastry was good wasn't it? OK, number one: is Stow-on-the-Wold pretty, i.e. are people attracted here by the look of its historic architecture?'
'A tick obviously. It's as easy on the eye as any village in England.'
'Yup. Two, does it have good communications or is it isolated?'
'Well, it's only ten minutes from Kingham Station on the Worcester to Paddington line, and it's on the tourist trail between Oxford and Shakespeare's Stratford.'
'Another tick. Three, does it have jobs locally?'
'I'd say yes. It's got hotels and pubs and shops and cafes. So that's got to be a tick.'
'Four. Does it have heart, a sense of its own identity? I'll answer that. It's got loads. It's got a physical centre, the Market Square, that everyone can stand in and say "This is my Stow-on-the-Wold", and as well, the place oozes history. Iron Age fort, the last battle of the Civil War fought here, centre of the medieval sheep trade…'
'You don't think you might be a little biased on this one, do you?'
'Absolutely. But I'm allowed to be. History's my bag. So I'm going to be a dictator and give it an extra big tick.'
Maggie gives a rascally giggle. 'I'm enjoying this. What's next?'
'Is it lopsided? Which would be bad.'
'Remind me again what we mean by that?'
'Well, is it all posh people, for instance? Or is it all commuters? Is it a ghetto?'
'I'd say definitely not. There are expensive eighteenth-century houses and there are affordable places to live in as well.'
'I think that's right. And if you like to join clubs, there's a big range too. From the British Legion to a thriving youth club, to the Women's Institute.' I pick up the serving spoon and divide up the last pepper strips, two and a half each. 'Hmm. Maybe more relevant though, there are a lot of oldies in Stow. Forty per cent retirees.'
'Is that enough to make it lopsided?'
I cluck and chew the end of the biro. 'Why don't we give it half a tick?'
'OK. Where are we up to?'
'Number six, shops. Well that's obviously a big fat tick. There's not a lot you can't buy here, whether you want a humane mousetrap, home-made sausages or the complete works of Dostoevsky.'
'And don't forget designer jeans!'
'Oops, sorry. I'll put a footnote to that effect.'
'Hang on though. Tesco came to the outskirts of Stow only five or six years ago, and didn't we reckon a supermarket usually kills off village shops?'
'You're right. The greengrocer's shut of course. But the little Co-op in the Square, and the two delis and Bob the Butcher's shop all carried on and do well.'
'So why do you reckon that was?'
'Well, I think it's because Stow's a thriving place anyway. It was strong enough to survive the competition. Next, number seven, is it over-commercialised?'
'Some might say too many teashops and gift shops.'
'Well, I'd make a strong case for a tick here. Stow has always been a place where people came to buy things. It's always been a market. And more important, Stow isn't just tourism. Its architecture doesn't get drowned in a sea of visitors.'
'Fair enough.'
'Next one: fiery spirits, that's people with get up and go to organise anything that's needed to improve the place. Like Jenni, founding editor of Stow Times, for instance.'
'And Joanna next door, she's a good example. She's on the Stow Council Planning Committee, the Committee of the Friends of Stow Surgery, sings in the church choir, as well as being in the Professional and Business Group, on the Civic Society Committee and in the Women's Institute. And there are plenty of others like her.'
'OK, tick. And finally, size.'
'Well, some people would say Stow isn't a village at all, that it's a town.'
'Look, this arrived through the post last week.' I get up and select a glossy pamphlet from the heap of papers on the desk. 'It's a flyer about a competition to find "the most vibrant village in Gloucestershire". Village is defined as a population under 3,500. Stow is under 3,000. So it's official, Stow is a village. But the point about size is that Stow has scored high on all the other points, partly because it is a bigger village. Big enough to have shops, lots of clubs, a mix of housing, etcetera, etcetera.'
'OK, so is that the lot?' I nod, but Maggie interrupts, 'Hang on, what about the football team test?'
'Cripes, yes. How could I forget that? Stow doesn't have a football team.' I scratch behind my ear and hmm. 'It doesn't feel right for it to fail the test though. Young people aren't deserting Stow like they are Hogsthorpe. There is a rugby team, of course. And some would say that rugby in Gloucestershire is like football on Merseyside. Rugby's not just a posh sport round here. So having a rugby club – and, what's more, one that has dances and barbecues and that kind of social stuff as well – is an indicator that young people tend to stick around in Stow, so I think it deserves a tick.'
'I agree. So what's Stow-on-the-Wold's score on the perfect village scale?'
I scan my list. '… nine and a half out of ten.'
'Bloody Hell!' exclaims Maggie. 'We live in paradise!'
CHAPTER 35
THE OLD STABLES
INTO THE SUNSET
'Well, now,' says Ralph settling himself in the middle of the sofa like a king on an overlarge throne, 'I've got an announcement to make.'
I gulp. I'm going to have to interrupt him. I've hardly spoken during lunch. This is for two reasons. First, I had a restless night, tormented by dreams about the imperfect village, full of policemen that all look like Wayne Rooney, and shops on fire, and where nobody could find work because the houses were leaning to one side and kept falling over. So I'm tired. Secondly, after this night of confusion, I'm no longer confident I can remember my key sentence, so all the time that Ralph has been telling us about the class solidarity at Cremona University and the ridiculous antics of the buffoon Berlusconi, I've been saying to myself, 'Is it PM JOBS has a SHOP-SOILED FIRE in his HEART and plays FOOTBALL badly? Or is it PC FIBS FIRES LOPSIDED SHOTS at the SPIRIT SHOP?' However, returning from the kitchen to get the sugar for Ralph's coffee, I've had a crafty scrabble through the top drawer of the desk and taken a quick glance at my crib sheet, so I'm all set with my arguments, from PRETTY through
to SIZE. Nothing can go wrong, so long as I recite it soon. The dust-up between me and Ralph on the worth of village life has got to be had now. I can't have him droning on for hours about the publication of his latest academic paper on Peruvian Marxism in the 1920s, or else I'll forget the ten bull's eye points again. So I interrupt.
'Can we just settle one thing first, Ralph,' I challenge him. 'You know Stow-on-the-Wold isn't Lark Rise to Cranford, I mean Candleford to Downtown Abbey.'
He gives me a nervous look as if he's being accosted by a man who a moment before was seen shouting at a lamp-post.
I seize the opportunity while he's on the back foot. 'Stow-on-the-Wold's got it all,' I bark. 'Nine and a half out of ten, it communicates well, it's got plenty of shops. And it used to have bubonic plague, but these days it's just pretty big. No football I admit. But best of all, Ralph, it's not very lopsided!' This isn't exactly what I say, but it's what it feels like to me.
A Horse in the Bathroom Page 28
