WHAT IS THE SPAXTON SOCIETY?

 

In the words of the old patriotic song, "There'll Always Be An England", a nostalgic and idealized picture of the English village is painted in words and rhyme: Wherever there's a cottage small Beside a field of grain.

Unfortunately, village life today is taken up with dodging cars, trying to keep the village store and post office functioning, wondering if we'll ever get a decent bus service into town, and where's the old village bobby?  Oh, and has the school got a secure future?

People who live in villages are, more often than not, townspeople who live in the country. Young villagers are driven to find work in nearby towns and cities, farms diversify as owners and tenants seek ways to earn a new living, and retired townies sell up their Home Counties properties to seek a bucolic existence in "the country".  In doing so, they push up the prices of village houses and add further to the pressure on young villagers, whose links with the villages go back centuries, to find rented homes. Many of them can't afford the down payment  on even modest houses.

Yes, life in the country is not quite as it is painted in the song.

But newcomers to villages can and do have a valuable contribution to make to their chosen way of life. They do bring in ideas, techniques and sometimes business and professional acumen that would otherwise be lacking.

It is through such groups as the Spaxton Society that the old meets the new. Ideas are exchanged, programmes are evolved. It is where the former townspeople can learn about the area in which they live -- its hopes and aspirations. For instance, the Spaxton Society recently played a key role in drawing up the Village Design Statement, and it endeavours to keep alive an awareness of all that is valuable from the past, to the present and into the future.

For six evenings a year, villagers embark on a delightful learning curve.

                         You could come and join us.