Yes folks change is in the air. We changed our minds about lambing yet again and so introduced a young Tup in September. Every countryman knows that the cycle of life means a change of tups but the fact is that we like sheep around us.
Growing plants and animals for food caring for them, harvesting, dressing, cooking and eating is important to the lives of country folk the world over.
We enjoy chats with like-minded people, all of whom are part of the real, the actual, village communities of the area. Rural communities are not theoretical entities; they are not created top-down by the dictates’ of the powerful but have an ancient identity. They grow on their own and there are at least nine of them in, what is now labelled by church officials as the Leadon Vale Benefice.
There has been much talk recently in the Church of England and in national political circles about ‘change.’ I have listened carefully to what is being said and who is saying it whilst, at the same time, wondering if those doing most of the talking realise that folk from rural communities are equally, if not more aware of change than their urban-minded cousins. Moreover in this rural benefice, the majority of its residents are somewhat country-minded.
The human brain simply cannot stop itself creating distinctions. It is made that way and so it simply has to classify and categorise. Most distinctions are fuzzy around the edges, but in the case of town and country mind-sets some clear differences are apparent. For example; the country mind naturally sees itself as being outside in the country and the house as a place to go into. The town mind on the other hand sees the house as the place to go out from and the countryside as the place to go into. This totally different perspective was typified for me some years ago whilst listening to the late Anthony Wedgewood Benn MP speaking about his party’s policy on the countryside. He said that he saw cities as centres of civilising excellence surrounded by a vast countryside of chaos and darkness, which was in need of learning from cities how folk should live together.
I remember thinking at the time that his analysis and solution demonstrated his total misunderstanding of the rural mind-set. Despite similarities we think and value so many things differently. For instance a countryman or woman will regard vehicles and much more in a more utilitarian way, so you will not see a Chelsea Tractor in Ketford but you will see 4X4s. Even the humble Rayburn in Pauntley, so loved by the chattering classes in Hampstead, is seen as a device for drying wet trousers and reviving lambs and not as “One-up over the Jones.”
I am forever grateful to my great grandfather for pointing out that many countrymen live in towns and that some town minded folk live in the countryside, and I often think of Great Uncle George who added that, “In God’s eyes all men are equal.” This meant that I grew up knowing that Wedgewood Benn was wrong. A city man is no better than a rural one. In our family lexicon therefore, no one is better than me, and I am no better than anyone else. We may have differing roles but no one is better. In fact, one of the men I admire most and who will I’m sure, figure in ‘God’s eye; was a humble countryman who spent most of his life as a Barnwood Builder’s labourer living in Coney Hill, Gloucester.
Differences between rural life and town life also include the need to change clothes three or four times a day because of the weather and muck which comes from daily contact with livestock and poultry. Nor in rural areas, is there predictability about transport links, phones or any other service. Many houses have cess pits and water supplies that they must themselves unblock and maintain, whilst others need standby generators and a local network of seasonal contacts ranging from the agronomist to bore-hole maintenance.
It seems to me that rural folk across the world-wide share a more common and tolerant understanding of what life means, than is understood by those in Britain who tell us we must accept ideas which appear to be based on an idealised view of nature found on Rupert Bear’s Nutwood Common, or amongst Peter Rabbit’s friends. In any case, change itself is not a new idea, in fact it could be said to have started in the Garden of Eden when blissful ignorance gave way to the uncertainty of knowledge. Even the act of creation itself meant the changing and reorganising of matter in a creative and exciting manner.
Change is so common that in 1789 the American Benjamin Franklin wrote that, “There are only two certainties in life, Death and Taxation”. In other words change dominates our lives and, although our lives as rural life has a different focus than city folk we are no lesser able to amend, modify, alter, or change our ways than those folk who think they know best.
As for the word ‘Change,’ my mind goes to an answer given some years ago by the late Frank Muir to a question put to him on the radio programme My Word. The question itself eludes me, but his answer was based on a hymn by the Scottish writer Henry Francis Lyte, Frank finished his little tale thus, “The Dentist shone his torch into my mouth and said …..
Change and decay in all around I see. O Lord, who changeth not, abide with me.”
View from the Pew 