Inside the mind of a village busybody
When I moved into a new house six months ago, Arthur (name changed for security purposes) who lives next door, popped around to ask whether I wanted to join the village Neighbourhood Watch. “Everyone looks out for each other around here,” he assured me. Every month, he emails a local police update (crimes tend to be along the lines of shop-lifting Mars Bars, but give me a thrill nonetheless). This community spirit instils the most extraordinary sense of security. Arthur and his all-seeing eye – the benign Sauron of Somerset, if you will – is as welcome, trustworthy and on the ball as any police patrol.
Our village communities have been brought closer together by Covid, it seems, though they are perhaps more territorial now. There may be a fine line between “helpful local” and “village busybody” – that most quintessentially English of characters, and one embodied in such joyous fictional characters as Miss Marple and EF Benson’s Mapp and Lucia – but either way, these investigative (or interfering) locals are having something of a moment in the sun.
So news yesterday about village vigilantes in Dorset will have rung familiar bells with many country dwellers. It seems a musician, Phil Dewhurst, was driving through Longburton, when three locals in high-vis jackets yelled at him to slow down. After Dewhirst – a resident of the nearby metropolis of Sherborne – stopped his car, he was told off quite firmly; there was even a suggestion – he suggests – that he might have stolen the vehicle. It’s hard to entirely tell who was at fault here – obviously speeding is never acceptable, but everyone was clearly a bit irate. Clipboards were brandished. Were the villagers protecting the lives of locals or was this the work of overzealous busybodies?
It turns out the Longburton Three had received training in community speed watching, but during Covid, more widely, police have had to ask rural villagers not take the law into their own hands, after they blocked roads, and put messages on car windscreens to stop tourists visiting beauty spots.
Yet is the post-Covid city exodus now making matters worse, causing friction between those who know who sits where in the pub and the owners of shiny Range Rovers, who push up the house prices and fall foul of local parking customs?
Yes, too much beady-eyed curiosity can feel intrusive. “I live in a village of busybodies,” says Helen, 52, from Yorkshire. “The village WhatsApp pings so often I’ve had to mute it. You can’t do a thing without people having an opinion. Every time we do anything to our house – like paint it – there are complaints to the council. They set up a speed gun post outside our house, and to our eternal shame, they caught my husband going over the limit.”
Helen says that the control extends to naming and shaming those who break the self-imposed rules. “You have to warn everyone before having fireworks, because of the distress it causes to pets – which is fair enough. But one poor woman who wasn’t on the group had fireworks for her daughter’s 18th. If we’d had village stocks, they’d have been put to good use.”
On the other hand, Helen adds, if there’s someone lurking around garden sheds, it’s instantly reported. “There’s a great deal of kindness; if anyone needs a plumber or electrician it’s quickly sorted.”
Oxfordshire-based Claire, 60, says that the power of local busybodies around her has a near Parliamentary feel, but without the controversies. (As most of the heavyweights are retired, they don’t have controversial second jobs.) “Any changes to the village are run past the older generation, who’ve lived here forever,” she says – using the word “elders”.
“We wanted a change to the speed limit, but were told no, and there’s one man who goes on to properties to check that satellite dishes are in the right place.”
Put a comment on the village Facebook group, Claire says, and you are likely to be shouted down immediately. It’s fair to say that this is common to many village Facebook groups; righteous fury about dog poo, children playing loudly or boy racers can rapidly descend into abuse.
Firm village vigilante Kelly, 46, who lives in Surrey, says she’s proud of what she achieves as a modern-day Miss Marple. “It’s a running joke that I’m a busybody, but I’m proud of it. You need people keeping an eye on things. We live just off the main road, and drivers were using our lane as a cut through. Within a few weeks of living here, I’d seen a cat run over, and I was campaigning – successfully – for speed bumps.”
A year later, a conservation group put up an unsightly sign on a local Victorian bridge. Kelly positioned herself on the bridge every day, asking locals what they thought of the sign. “It looked as though it was made by a toddler, and there had been no public consultation. I contacted the conservation group, rallied the locals, and they moved the sign.”
Most days, she says, there are neighbours to be texted, asking whether they were expecting window cleaners (“it could be anyone up the ladder”) or letting them know if strangers are entering their gardens (“usually lodgers or cleaners, but you never know”).
Sometimes things can seem to go too far. In 2015, a group of locals in Hampshire bought a speed gun and reported an extraordinary 3,500 motorists to police. The village was bitterly divided, with the vicar calling for peace.
As for me, I’d be cheering them on, albeit under my breath. I embrace the Misses – or Mr – Marples of this world. If people have opinions about what colour I paint the garden shed, bring it on. The true busybody has the community’s best interests at heart, and in these uncertain times, that’s something to be welcomed. As soon as the kids leave home, I’ll be buying a clipboard and joining the ranks.
