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The young people who talk of the
village as being 'dead' are talking utter nonsense, as in their
hearts they must surely know. No, the village is not dead. There is
more life in it now than there ever was. But
paradoxically,
'village life' is dead. Gone for ever. It did not die suddenly.
These things never do happen suddenly. It began to decline about a
hundred years ago, when many girls left home
to go into service
in towns many miles away, and men likewise left home in increasing
numbers in search of work, and home was where work was. There are
still a number of people alive today who can remember what 'village
life' meant in the early years of the present century. It meant
knowing and being known by everybody else in the village. It meant
finding your entertainment, such as it was, in the village or within
walking distance of it. One of my informants sometimes went to
London and back in a day on his bicycle, but he was a rather
exceptional young man. To go anywhere at all was for most country
people a treat;
for many children the one and only treat was the annual Sunday
school outing. I can remember one such outing which involved a three-mile
ride on a horse-drawn
dray,
precariously balanced on a wooden form, one hand clutching the side
of the dray, the other clutching warm pennies which were intended to
be exchanged for sticks
of rock if we ever got to the seaside
–
which we did, via the nearest railway station.
It meant housewives tied to the home all day and every day, their
monotony relieved by a regular succession of
'packmen', 'tally men',
itinerant traders calling at the kitchen door with groceries, hats,
crockery, brushes, underwear, ribbons, etc. Nobody bought or sold
fruit, flowers, vegetables, plants
–
one exchanged, bartered, begged or gave them away. The same thing
with pig 'fry'.
The same with
sittings
of eggs. It meant speaking the local dialect, and distrusting
or despising anyone who did not –
except the parson and the schoolmaster. It meant 'going to the
toilet' –
a phrase we never used –
in a dark and draughty
privy at the bottom of the garden or at the back of the
house. It meant going to bed early to economize in lamp-oil and coal;
washing in cold water from pump or well; eating cold fat bacon for
breakfast or going without. It meant finding your way across fields
and along deserted lanes in the dark, and enjoying it, especially if
you went
courting. All that, and very much more, is what 'village life'
used to mean. |
