Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilisation, said he thought it would be ‘a good idea.’ He knew perfectly well that the word itself described a way of life with at least as many ‘cons’ as ‘pros’. As all our residents of Corinium know, ‘civitas’ means ‘city’ in Latin. But being urban doesn’t necessarily prepare people for life in the country.
Rural dwellers know that city folk tend to be ignorant when it comes to understanding how to care for the countryside. One aspect of this is that ‘townies’ take less notice of their surroundings than do ‘countryfolk’. People who live in the urban jungle are vigilant mainly on their own level: the dangers they are most likely to face in everyday life come from other people.
Rural people are far more likely to watch what is above and what below the level urban eyes take in. Lambing time means keeping an eye out for birds of prey, and – apart from noticing signs of burrows, setts and hare forms, a good countryman keeps an eye out for ground hazards which will mean they have to clean their boots!
But today’s population shifts mean that young people are leaving the countryside and moving to cities, and wealthy city types are buying up country properties both as second homes and retirement destinations. Some people have expected rural populations to shrink as the population becomes predominantly biased towards an elderly imbalance. The current demographic of afternoon TV viewers loves to watch ‘Escape to the Country’ and somewhat outdated images of a countryside that no longer exists, as portrayed by ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ and ‘Heartbeat’. Despite the slightly less romantic approach of ‘Countryfile’ and the dilution of rural lifestyles depicted in the BBC Radio 4 soap ‘The Archers’, there are still escapees from urban lives who dream of owning a thatched cottage with roses round the door, and the rural population is actually growing, swelling as a result of the myth of the rural idyll.
One of the resultant problems is that of the ‘idle rich’. They import neglect from city life and fail to notice the deterioration of the dream they are trying to buy into. This month’s photo shows a rotting shed beside a clump of nettles and an ash tree behind suffering from dieback. When the focus of Cirencester was still that of a true country market town, the marketplace was augmented by a livestock market down where the Leisure Centre is now, Vodafone’s building housed Jefferies seed merchant, and the open-fronted Corinium Suite of The Fleece – formerly The Sun Inn – was where Henry Tovey and Son had their Motor Garage, from which they supplied agricultural machinery. At the top of the Market Place, Barnett’s fish and game shop catered for the wealthier ‘county’ set, but these were not the same as today’s wealthy owners of historic Country Estates – the descendants of the old gentlemen farmers can often be recognised by frayed cuffs on their handmade shirts, as the escalating costs of maintaining country estates outstrip the income they generate.
City living tends to make people favour privacy, and few incomers are readily inclined to form friendships with local families who have been here for generations. Country people have the benefit of knowing how rural life makes us take care of each other. Unpredictable weather and events we can neither forecast nor control, such as crop failures and animal diseases, mean that we know that we need to help each other in misfortune as there will be times we shall be ‘those in need.’
Countryfolk care.
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