Fairacre Village Hall

No exploration of village communities would be complete without reference to the “Miss Read” books. The two series of Fairacre and Thrush Green novels contain the observations of a village school teacher and were published in the latter half of the twentieth century. Perhaps at first glance, some might view these works as twee escapism, but they do have a good dose of reality in them. Rural poverty, family strife and characters that one might refer to as a bloody nuisance all make an appearance. Miss Read was the pen name of Dora Saint, herself a schoolteacher with wide experience of working in small country schools. Although her work contains fascinating observations of the old country way of life that can send one misty-eyed with nostalgia, these are not the stories of someone who lived in an ivory tower.

 Of course village halls made several appearances in her books. I’m currently reading “Over the Gate” which was published in 1964. In the section entitled “Mrs Pringle’s Christmas Pudding” reference is made to an interesting gathering at Fairacre Village Hall. Many southern English villages had played host to evacuated and bombed-out Cockneys during World War Two, and fictional Fairacre is meant to have been one such village. Although the war years are now far behind them, each year old evacuees take a coach trip back to see their old hosts and the WI put on a welcoming spread of food for them at the hall. I feel sure that the inspiration for this story is placed in reality and that this must have happened in several country towns and villages within a few miles radius of the capital. I wonder how long this went on for.  Anyway, this storyline leads to a wonderful description of Fairacre Village Hall:

She gazed round our dingy village hall with affection. The walls are covered with sticky gingery-brown matchboarding and upon its surface hang lop-sided photographs of football teams of long-ago, faded brown with age. Stern country countenances, many of them wearing fine moustaches, peer from among the clouds which the damp has drawn over the group. Here and there are pinned such notices as ‘Scouts’ Rules’, ‘The Resuscitation of the Drowned’ (though we are miles from any water), and ‘suggestions for W.I. Programme – PLEASE HELP!’ By the door there is a dilapidated piece of cardboard on which is printed: PLEASE SWITCH OF THE LIGHT and that missing F has been a thorn in my flesh ever since coming to Fairacre.

Dusty plush curtains, on a sagging wire, screen the minute stage from sight, and the wood is of splintery bare boards with here and there a knot of wood, polished by friction, projecting like a buttered brazil. There is nothing truthfully to gladden the eye in our hall, and yet Mrs Willet looked upon it now with all the doting tenderness of a mother gazing upon her first-born. Such, I observed, is the power of association.

To members of the WI in wartime, the village hall must have been like a second home. Post war reminiscing must have made the old places feel like a second skin.

If you like Miss Read, you might like my book of Joyce Grenfell inspired short stories. Click here