My wife and I still live in the first home we moved into after we married, in Autumn 1983. This is in the village of Martley in Worcestershire, and is the third of four bungalows in a short unadopted road with the bungalows on one side of the road facing woodland on the other. At the end of our road, where it joins one of the main roads through the village, is a small green where children can play. In 1983, our neighbours were an elderly single lady on one side, and a pleasant family with two young sons on the other. The family left within a year and the Savages moved in. Mr and Mrs Savage were an elderly couple who had moved to our village after living in Devon. Devon, they told us, was an awful place. There was an erratic water supply, the roads were full of tourists, and the locals were unfriendly. Martley was much better.
It was not long, however, before this positive opinion began to change. The Savages totally opposed the idea that children could play on the small green at the end of the road. The noise of children playing, they said, made their life unbearable. This became a public campaign which involved shouting at children and demanding people sign a petition against their use of the green. Few, however, signed it. Indeed, their only supporters were their other neighbours, also an elderly couple. The lack of support from the rest of the village was a sign to the Savages that its inhabitants did not meet their own high standards. Mrs Savage told me “This village may be full of three and four-bedroom houses, but they are not three and four-bedroom people”. Another time, she complained that the village was little better than a slum. At the time, I was planting flowers in my front garden, under the dappled sunlight coming through the trees. Eventually, the Savages could bear it no longer and left for another village where, they assured me, people were far nicer and where they would be much happier. I thought this unlikely and suspected that their life followed a repeated cycle of optimism, disappointment, anger and evacuation. I therefore felt sorry for them.
I suspect that every village in England has at least one couple like the Savages: incomers who complain about church bells, the sound of cows mooing and sheep bleating, the noise from tractors in fields, and the happy sounds of children playing. This might be a product of the way country life is depicted on television, as an idyllic escape. In fact, one programme at present is called ‘Escape to the Country’. People who have experienced distress in a city may mistakenly come to believe that a village offers a life of absolute quiet, without the need to deal with other people. However, I think a more probable cause in some cases at least is subclinical paranoia. The person experiences noise as a kind of invasion of their identity, which they are unable to control. Children present particular problems for such people because children are spontaneous and joyful.
From my house, I can hear the children when they have their playtime in the village primary school across the fields. I can also hear the church bells on Sundays, at weddings, and when the bellringers practice on Friday evenings. These are all the happiest sounds I know. How sad are people who can not bear them.
It was not long, however, before this positive opinion began to change. The Savages totally opposed the idea that children could play on the small green at the end of the road. The noise of children playing, they said, made their life unbearable. This became a public campaign which involved shouting at children and demanding people sign a petition against their use of the green. Few, however, signed it. Indeed, their only supporters were their other neighbours, also an elderly couple. The lack of support from the rest of the village was a sign to the Savages that its inhabitants did not meet their own high standards. Mrs Savage told me “This village may be full of three and four-bedroom houses, but they are not three and four-bedroom people”. Another time, she complained that the village was little better than a slum. At the time, I was planting flowers in my front garden, under the dappled sunlight coming through the trees. Eventually, the Savages could bear it no longer and left for another village where, they assured me, people were far nicer and where they would be much happier. I thought this unlikely and suspected that their life followed a repeated cycle of optimism, disappointment, anger and evacuation. I therefore felt sorry for them.
I suspect that every village in England has at least one couple like the Savages: incomers who complain about church bells, the sound of cows mooing and sheep bleating, the noise from tractors in fields, and the happy sounds of children playing. This might be a product of the way country life is depicted on television, as an idyllic escape. In fact, one programme at present is called ‘Escape to the Country’. People who have experienced distress in a city may mistakenly come to believe that a village offers a life of absolute quiet, without the need to deal with other people. However, I think a more probable cause in some cases at least is subclinical paranoia. The person experiences noise as a kind of invasion of their identity, which they are unable to control. Children present particular problems for such people because children are spontaneous and joyful.
From my house, I can hear the children when they have their playtime in the village primary school across the fields. I can also hear the church bells on Sundays, at weddings, and when the bellringers practice on Friday evenings. These are all the happiest sounds I know. How sad are people who can not bear them.
Many years ago I met a man who had moved to the City from The Countryside and I was shocked. He then explained that he got fed up of people from miles away complaining that he played his music too loud. He said he now lives next to a roundabout and has never had a complaint.
ReplyDeleteI should emphasise that most people living in the country are not like the savages. A couple of families in my village at present are complaining about the supposed 'intolerable' noise from a children's play area. Another parish councillor and I went to all the other houses near the play area and found no complaints at all (although people did not like the swearing from the parents of children playing football).
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