Hi. Thanks for looking in. I'm glad you know what you're doing because I am groping my way along.
Welcome to The Village. A corner of England where the England of dreams exists. There's about 600 of us here. It's a village with a mediaeval church, shop and post office, Victorian primary school, a square, playground, allotments, dairy cows, chickens, winding tracks, leafy lanes.
It's got hills and woods and fields and streams. There's a Women's Institute, a flower club, a football club, a tennis club, a social club, a yoga club, a playgroup.
And two pubs.
Most villages struggle to support one. We need two.
The new postman knows the name of every house. He has to, because no house has a number and hardly any of the roads have names. We keep our postmen because it takes them so long to get to know the village. The last but one was here for 30 years. We've only got a new one now because the old one bought the village shop last week.
The milkman drives a white van with a collie attached to the back wheel. He delivers the papers as well as the milk, and farms a few acres. He quotes Oscar Wilde and used to be chairman of the parish council.
The vicar has just bought his second one-man hovercraft but hasn't told his wife. He is a member of the Bad Boys Boating Club, which embarks on expeditions up local rivers in small boats. Beer is generally involved, along with hiding the vicar until he stops slurring.
I've lived here for five years. I still can't believe where I have landed. I need to write about the people who live here, the things they do. It is hard to believe such a place exists. I can't keep it to myself so that's what I am going to do here. Share it. Do drop in when you can.
DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENTS IN THE VILLAGE
I am going to start with the progress of my next project, to direct the village's annual Christmas production. I joined the small amateur dramatics group three years ago, and last year, I wrote and directed a pantomime, Sleeping Beauty. The vicar was the dame, and got hate mail for his tits. Apart from that, it all went down a storm and everyone thought it was the best ever. Like they do every year, because most of the audience are over 80 and their memories have gone.
In the spring, the drama group met to discuss what we would do this year. I was asked to direct again, and no-one wanted to do a simple panto. I suggested something more ambitious - John Mortimer's version of A Christmas Carol, to be performed in the church and to involve other groups in the village. Like the school children, the bell ringers and the excrutiatingly bored teenagers who hang about the square.
WHHHHHHHAAAAAAAATTTTT? Not only did I want to involve children (hawk, spit, per-ding!) but I wanted to put it in the CHURCH. Holy horrors. What about heating, what about lighting, what about getting everybody out if the roof caved in, what about the altar, what about holiness and the old people, what about GOD???? Does He know? Had I told Him?
Rather than face the thunderbolt, I went away on holiday. Mutterings gathered pace in my absence. The script was too difficult (nobody had read it), Mortimer's version is too highbrow (nobody had seen it), it's too much, it's too soon, the church is not the place, nobody will want to come and see it, we don't have enough men for the parts, we don't have enough lights, the costumes will be too expensive and, most of all, WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?
Bloody blow-ins. That's what newcomers are called. People who weren't born in The Village or have lived here less than 50 years. Blow-ins. I'm a bloody blow-in.
A Meeting had to be called. A Meeting to Discuss The Idea. The date was set, August 3rd in the village hall. I knew a couple of mates in the am dram group quite liked the idea of Christmas Carol. More importantly, they quite like me. I grabbed one of them, Pete, to help me plan a strategy to get the backing of the majority. I want to do this project. It's big, but it could be magic. He's a management man so he does iron hand in velvet glove at work as a matter of course. We drew up a business plan to get the group on my side.
I visited each member individually. I apologised for being so damned bossy. I tried to outline how I saw it happening. I saw some of them melt, I saw some of them freeze even more, I saw some of them uncertain about being uncertain. I recruited new members who could help backstage, I talked to the head of the school, I grabbed teenagers and pinned them up again walls to try and persuade them to join. I worked hard and sweated.
Wednesday dawned. Nothing more could be done. Pete was away so couldn't be there to support me. I was on my own.
Big circle of chairs in the village hall, 30 people or so, waiting for me to begin. I outlined my ideas. It all sounded enormously difficult when I listened to myself. Screen off the altar, create an auditorium with curtaining, build two stages, put lights here, scenery here, choir there, tiered seating at the back, torchlights down the path through the churchyard to the village hall for the interval, mince pies and mulled wine in the hall, bell ringers in the bell tower, handbell ringers by the font. Children's procession up the aisle, market stalls behind the screen. Ghosts here, Scrooge's four poster bed there. It was endless.
Questions please, one at a time, round the circle. Bloody heating comes up time and time again. Anni blurts out, "Get the bloody audience to put coats on then." She's on my side. Fire regulations, health and safety issues, exit signs, cushions for the pews, costumes, too many lines. Toilets. Bleeding toilets. Can't believe how important heating and toilets are.
But,thanks to Pete, we had anticipated every question and researched every answer. Heating could be hired from blah and costs blah, toilet can be placed blah and costs blah, fire exits can be here and there, everything can be sorted.
After an hour and a half of discussion, we voted. Everyone was for it, except two. Rod and Pam. Totally predictable. Rod is a professional saboteur, and will always see the pint half empty, never half full. Pam has been married to him for 40 years. She has to follow him. Understood.
28 others are for it, up for it, backing it and behind it all the way. Scared, nervous, wondering whether we can pull it off, but they are there, shoulder to shoulder saying, "LET'S DO IT!!" I am amazed, and proud, and terrified.
So now we are off. The scripts arrived this morning. I'm casting it this weekend and we have the first read-through on Tuesday. This is some adventure and will involve dozens and dozens of people in the village. We perform at the beginning of December. We've got just under four months to do it.
Wish me luck.
