A semi-rural ramble

As i was unable to walk across a city and have been unable to leave home at for weeks, i have had to resort to a short semi-rural ramble through my village. From my house, which is a relatively new addition to the area, i walked through the alleyway (known as a “ginnell” locally) at the top of the road with its fences marking the allotments on one side and the gardens of the house on the other i noticed something that i hadn’t done previously, there was no litter or graffiti like one would expect to find if it were a town or city rather than a village. This got me thinking, do those who live in towns and cities accept that a disregard for public spaces is to be expected? And are we who live in smaller communities unwilling to accept living in those conditions?

At the end of the alleyway we come to the older pats of the village, a half mile long road with allotments on one side and terraced houses built for mining families on the other. The pits have long closed and the houses have gone through some changes since then. They seem more affluent now than ever before, in the years following the pit closure they became rundown and neglected just like the whole area did. If i would have walked this route 30 years ago i could have almost guaranteed that 90% of these homes were still those of mining families but now they could belong to anyone. They are just houses now, anonymous, without a clear identity.

The allotments, now a hobby for locals, would once have served to provide extra food for the local workforce and their families. They are filled with people working the ground in the spring sunshine, more than would be there usually during the week as i guess most have had to take time off due to the coronavirus situation. I had assumed that most would have been at retirement age but now i dont belive that to be the case.

At the end of the road is the main road, never particularly busy as it is not on any route to anywhere except other villages. This is where the local shops are. Originally bakers, butchers, greengrocers etc, they became largely closed down with the demise of mining though in the last ten years there has been a massive change. Now we have a micro-brewery, a boutique clothing store owned by a famous footballers wife, an international award winning restaurant and the original store of an exclusive men’s tailors and bespoke clothing designer which is frequented by celebrities, i saw Tom Hardy in there last year. All these businesses are now closed due to Covid-19 and it is a worry that it could set the area back back to like it was in the 90s, deprived and unappealing.

Everyone says hello as you pass by around here which is nice and everyone is helping each other to social distance. People will stop and wait at a a safe distance for others to get past with a smile and pleasantries exchanged. Having grown up in a city this niceness seemed strange at first now its just normal and i often wonder if those who have lived here their whole lives even notice how unusually friendly folk are around here. Though there is no mining community anymore there is still a solid sense of community and we are lucky to have it.

Past the shops and the rows of houses which lay behind them we reach the end of the ramble. The main road now becomes a country lane with fields either side leading down to the valley bellow. From here the site where the old pit once was can be seen and the old well-trodden path that once led the workers to the pit shaft now has benches dotted along it and plaques showing what nature can be seen along the trail. The old pictures of the area in its industrial heyday show a smokey, scarred landscape, but now only a couple of decades on it has now been transformed into a beauty spot, as if someone has tried to hide the evidence of how it once was.