You’ve stumbled on that elemental other sense of being which exists in the quiet rural backwaters - like hidden connective tissue linking inhabitants with their shared past, with the elderly still quietly grieving over the loss of its surety and constancy while the next generation have only an echo of that to understand and express; but it’s there.
Animacy (Yes, thank you) that has gone but has been witnessed in and around the parish - very strong. To the outsider the long term inhabitant seems sometimes strange and reluctant to talk / semi unintelligible but it’s just that they give a weight to other ways of being alive In the countryside as imprinted from their early years and probably think that that would not be understood.
The village’s hinterland which was once a playground in the natural world is now all but segregated because of modern farming and the moats the land now stands behind.
“Where are you?” like Delia Smith’s exhortation to a Norwich City FC crowd.
How do we animate ourselves to express the losses.
Village life for a newcomer - tricky so tricky but you no doubt have just the qualities needed to become much more than just accepted!
Excellent piece, Elizabeth. Positive and practical, too. Often ‘outsiders’ make things happen - at least, that’s been my experience of the two smaller villages I’ve lived in. We live in a village of 300 souls with no pub (closed) and no playing field (now grazed). The children do not know each other because they all go to different schools by bus or car, and speak to their friends online. I was going to do a monthly family pub games night in the village hall but then the pandemic came and Ive not got round to it since. I think (but am unsure) there are two mums with children under 2. What I do know is that there is one older lady, nearly 80, but with the energy of a 25-year-old, who has lived here more than 40 years. Her unhappy experience of being an outsider arriving here has made her the most brilliant connector of people. She welcomes all new arrivals and connects / matches them to relevant residents. She’s like the village fairy godmother - and the glue that cements the community.
You’ve stumbled on that elemental other sense of being which exists in the quiet rural backwaters - like hidden connective tissue linking inhabitants with their shared past, with the elderly still quietly grieving over the loss of its surety and constancy while the next generation have only an echo of that to understand and express; but it’s there.
Animacy (Yes, thank you) that has gone but has been witnessed in and around the parish - very strong. To the outsider the long term inhabitant seems sometimes strange and reluctant to talk / semi unintelligible but it’s just that they give a weight to other ways of being alive In the countryside as imprinted from their early years and probably think that that would not be understood.
The village’s hinterland which was once a playground in the natural world is now all but segregated because of modern farming and the moats the land now stands behind.
“Where are you?” like Delia Smith’s exhortation to a Norwich City FC crowd.
How do we animate ourselves to express the losses.
Village life for a newcomer - tricky so tricky but you no doubt have just the qualities needed to become much more than just accepted!
Excellent piece, Elizabeth. Positive and practical, too. Often ‘outsiders’ make things happen - at least, that’s been my experience of the two smaller villages I’ve lived in. We live in a village of 300 souls with no pub (closed) and no playing field (now grazed). The children do not know each other because they all go to different schools by bus or car, and speak to their friends online. I was going to do a monthly family pub games night in the village hall but then the pandemic came and Ive not got round to it since. I think (but am unsure) there are two mums with children under 2. What I do know is that there is one older lady, nearly 80, but with the energy of a 25-year-old, who has lived here more than 40 years. Her unhappy experience of being an outsider arriving here has made her the most brilliant connector of people. She welcomes all new arrivals and connects / matches them to relevant residents. She’s like the village fairy godmother - and the glue that cements the community.