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A YEAR IN THE LIFE O F C H EW STO K E V I L L AG E

P H OTO G RA P H S BY

M A RT I N PA R R

WI T H T E X T BY RO B E RT C H E S S H Y R E & D I A N E S M Y T H

RRB PHOTOBOOKS BRISTOL

C H EW STO K E , S O M E R S E T, E N G L A N D , 1992

Milk delivery

Commute to office and school in Bristol

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Trimming the hedge

Mowing the lawn

The village shop

Picking up apples

Andrew milking the cows

Chew Stoke Bowls Club

Chew Stoke Cricket club

Chew Stoke Bowls Club

Cricket teas

Methodist Cream Tea

Cricket Tea

Lost ball

Members of The Parish Council

The river often floods

Chew Valley Lake

A signpost on the outskirts of the village and advert for Harvest Home, an annual celebration held on the first Saturday in September

Day trip

Show home

The Read’s home

The Winsley’s home

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Safari supper

Christening at St Andrew’s Church

A wedding

A Funeral

Once upon a time in Chew Stoke A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF AN ENGLISH VILLAGE

Once the commuters have departed and children have been dropped at the village school, Chew Stoke picks up its daily rhythm. The rector, Keith Vivian, a jovial, white-haired alp of a man, make his slow way to fetch his morning paper; at the ‘Irish’ bridge, so called because when the stream is high it flows over rather than under it, he meets Dorothy Keel, a tiny sparrow in a brown mac as small as he is large; Mrs Keel, farmer’s widow and, at 86, something of a Chew Stoke icon, is just out of hospital in Bristol: ‘I didn’t like it at all; no country

By Robert Chesshyre

people to talk to.’ Cliff Chard, an ex-miner with a smile like a sunbeam, sits on a

It is 6am, still dark and very raw: a deep frost glimmers from

bench, sporting his permanent bowling-green tan. ‘I’ll tell them you’re

the fields of Perry House Farm as Andy Winsley swings his blue Y-reg

on the warpath,’ he calls. Arthur Young had already gone to work at

Cortina into the yard and cuts the lights. He ties on a green rubber

Brian’s garage. ‘I’d be happier if I was going the other way,’ he said. In

apron and vanishes into the black cattle pens. Gently, firmly, with high-

The Stores, the village shop, people come and go, lingering indulgently

pitched calls, he exhorts the black and white Friesians towards the

over their small purchases while they catch up on the news.

milking parlour.

The village has a cherished place in most English hearts.

He knows them all, their quirks, their problems. This one has

Research shows that seven out of ten Britons would live in the country

mastitis, her milk must be set aside; that one failed to calve and is

if they could. We carry a warm mental picture: timeless, unspoilt,

destined for the abattoir – ‘Got to have her head cut off,’ says Andy

sunlit; roses at the cottage door; cricket on the green; a stream flowing

with a grin, teasing a townsman’s sensitivities; a third has to be

through frosted fields; lingering evenings in a village pub; carols in a

restrained with a ‘kick bar’, a clamp on her groin to prevent her lashing

country church.

out. Outside, a mother-of-pearl dawn throws a soft light across the valley and silhouettes the winter trees against the lake. Perry House Farm is on the fringe of Chew Stoke, a village in what was Somerset and is (at least for the moment) Avon. Listed in the Domesday Book, Chew Stoke straddles two worlds: it is, through continuous generations, still securely rooted in its history, but the majority of its inhabitants have arrived in the past 25 years, children of the village by adoption rather than by birth. Andy is one of Chew Stoke’s last farm labourers, but he does not live in the village he came to in 1965 at the age of two. Now married with an infant son, he and his wife could not find a home in Chew Stoke, so every day he commutes from a Bristol suburb. As he hoses the khaki sludge and prepares for breakfast with his parents in the council house where he was brought up, solicitor Andrew Troup, who moved to Chew Stoke in 1976, is loading three boys into his Volvo estate for the nine-mile journey into Bristol. He will drop the teenagers at independent city schools before arriving for work shortly after 8.30am. The vehicle carves its familiar path through the traffic; Andrew knows all the back doubles. A deal has been struck: he listens to the eight o’clock news on radio 4 and the boys then tune in to radio 1. The school run has been Andrew’s daily lot for 12 years, and five more loom ahead.

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There is an alternative image: of young people forced to leave because scarce housing has been taken by commuters and the retired; of failed village shops and non-existent buses; of isolation and the wagging of gossips’ tongues. ‘A village,’ said a smart executive woman with horror, ‘is a time bomb waiting to go off.’ Which of these notions does the modern village match? Between Chew Stoke and Bristol rises Dundry Hill, over 600ft high and as total a barrier between town and country as there can be in Britain. Throughout 1992, photographer Martin Parr and I crossed that frontier regularly. This is our report from the other side.

Why did you choose Chew Stoke?’ The question was inescapable, and there was often a rider; ‘It’s not typical, you know.’ I suspect that any village we could have picked would have made similar denials. No one village can be ‘typical’ in a demographic or geographic sense, and to be picked on by the media is, in any case, not everyone’s idea of good fortune. Stoke is not a chocolate-box village. It straggles, it has no village green and is marred by new housing. Its centre lies in a hollow and will be missed by most people who surge along its over-busy main road. It has, however, gentle contours, a pretty brook, a tiny cobbled street

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celebrated by Arthur Mee as ‘one of the oddest in England’, wooden lanes, a Tudor rectory decorated with carved coats of arms and a 15th-

were hopping up and down at a village barn dance as midnight struck

century red sandstone church.

12 months later.

More importantly, it retains the vital village institutions; school,

Chew Stoke is shaped like an asymmetric spider, lanes going

shop, parish church (and Methodist chapel), two pubs, Post Office,

off in several directions like ill co-ordinated legs. The old village,

bobby and sports teams (including women’s rugby). And it is friendly.

supplemented by infilling and largely occupied by recent arrivals, lies

The first people we met were open and enthusiastic; women fundraising

to the west of the main road and the 52-house ‘council’ estate lies to

for Romania in the church hall, the rector’s wife, the landlord of the Yew

the east. The south is Chew Valley Lake, a reservoir for Bristol opened

Tree, the school head teacher and the pub gardener who introduced us

by the Queen in 1956.

to an unlikely menagerie of peacocks, rabbits, rats and a 16ft python called Fred. We would clearly have allies.

The population of 850 has barely changed in 150 years, but the number of houses has doubled to 316, reflecting the far smaller

The rector’s wife, who had lived for 20 years in a hierarchical

families of today. There has been a great deal of recent mobility. The

village in Herefordshire where a service could not start until the squire

chairman of the parish council calculated that little more than a third

had taken his pew, pointed out that Chew Stoke enjoys a free and

of today’s villagers lived in Stoke 20 years ago.

democratic air. There is no ‘squire’, no tradition of forelock tugging;

That modest proportion includes many whom natives would

there are moneyed people, but they don’t flaunt their wealth; there are

consider ‘incomers’. One man who arrived 30 years ago said, ‘When we

no braying country voices, no Range Rovers, and few Barbours. There

came, people said it would take 20 years to be accepted. That attitude

are no second homes, and the mix between natives and incomers

no longer exists because there aren’t enough people to take it.’ Several

must be reflected in thousands of villages that are within comfortable

native families trace their lineage back as far as village records go:

driving distance of a city.

among them there has always been intermarriage, and Chew Stoke

Our scheme was that Martin Parr, who lives in Bristol, should

cousinhood is as intricate as that of British aristocracy. There is also

record the year’s events in detail and that I should visit whenever

a looser relationship between villagers. No one can know everyone

possible. We arrived with a blustery dawn on January 1 to record the

else, but most people can recognise and place most of the others. A

village golf society’s New Year’s Day fixture in the Mendip Hills, and

village is not simply a small town or slice of suburb that happens to be

stuck in the country, but a community of unusual (often subconscious)

garlic and cow parsley, known locally as pig parsley. Every copse, field

self-awareness and interdependence. ‘You’ve got a core of people on

and hedge (sometimes it seemed every tree) held special memories

whom you can rely. It’s like a big family in that way,’ said one senior

for Arthur.

native.

There were great crested grebes on the lake, rabbits in the woods,

It was inevitable that we should hear the village grumbles. Some

a badgers’ set; elm trees were beginning to grow again; a blackbird

complaints have undeniable substance – for example, the lack of

gave a startled burst of sweet song; Arthur pointed out the perfect

affordable home for young people such as Andy Winsley, or the derisory

hole in an ash made by a green woodpecker (‘You couldn’t drill it better

bus service. Others, such as the perceived decline in traditional

than that’); we heard a wren’s song, and watched a skylark plummet

village activities, are more subjective – nostalgia is contagious, and

like a stone.

youngsters lament a lost golden age as readily as do ancient folk nursing their cider in the Stoke Inn.

He showed where the Home Guard had manoeuvred, a mutilated ash tree which an evacuee child had set on fire, concrete blocks left

There were several fears about us: that we would become a

over from making the Chew Valley dam. He pointed out the churches

clearing house for these grumbles; that as city types, our hidden

on the Mendip Hills beyond the lake, and lamented set-aside farming

agenda was to send up village life – caricature the WI as all teacups

policies. ‘Madness when there are people starving and farmers’ sons

and the singing of ‘Jerusalem’; as that we would betray village secrets.

who have no hope of land.’

The first concern was rooted in the fact that there are two village

From Arthur and others I heard the stories of past characters:

communities, the old and the new, and some friction where they meet

Harry Fear, the blacksmith who lived on an old sofa in a shack, and

(or fail to meet). The second was a risk run by any group of people

worked in a collarless shirt even in the coldest weather. When German

open enough to allow journalists among them. We stayed long enough,

bombers rumbled towards Bristol, he leaned on his gate watching

I hope, to convince them that we were certainly not after cheap

the sky – Fear by name, fearless by nature. There was George Luton,

laughs and that any inaccurate perceptions would be inadvertent

gored to death by a bull in 1919. His widow, ‘a tartar with a vicious

rather than malicious.

temper’, ran the Post Office with a rod of iron until it was wrecked in the great flood of 1968, which tore through the village, demolishing trees

Colin Salway looked out from his window to the ‘Tump’, 300fthigh Woodford Hill, that rises between the village and the lake: ‘With this view, why should I want to live anywhere else? I was born here and have every intention of dying here. I am patriotic, and that same sentiment comes down to village level. I know the river and the trees. When I walk around, I associate things with what I did as a kid. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.’ Colin is chairman of the parish council. A village boy brought up in some hardship after the early death of his father, he won a grammar school place and worked in the aerospace industry until his recent

and vehicles; Henry James Gill, the village bobby, who could smell a cider bottle at two miles; the Ogbornes, the finest ploughing family in all England. These are fragile memories, carried by the village elders. One of these stalwarts, Ken Wedlake, died a few weeks before Christmas. At his funeral the rector quoted Joyce Grenfell: ‘If I should go before the rest of you… weep if you must. Parting is hell, but life goes on.’ Ken was buried in the churchyard he used to help tend, among gravestones carved down the centuries with the Wedlake name and beneath a stone wall on which perched a watchful robin.

retirement. Apart from four years on secondment in California – both his daughters stayed and married Americans – he has lived in Chew Stoke all his life. His wife Edna is from neighbouring Chew Magna.

‘No, I can’t do Monday; I’ll be in Geneva.’ The speaker was checking his diary to see whether he could make a rehearsal date for

Colin’s fierce, almost animal, love of territory and of nature is

the dramatic society. A fairly recent creation, the society attracts as

widely shared. A man whose father had recently died of cancer said,

performers mainly incomers rather than natives. Its March production,

‘To the end he watched the birds coming down to feed at the table.

the first big event in the village calendar, was a roaring success, with

He had always been close to nature and could accept that death was

packed audiences drawn from all corners. The show was a World

the opposite of birth, not the opposite of life. He died with a smile on

War Two revue, entitled Chew Stoke’s Finest Hour and a Half, a

his face.’

happy decision in that it lured 40 people to auditions, twice the

I took summer walks with Arthur Young. He carried a cleft stick

normal number.

to hold up the barbed wire as we ducked underneath. ‘We’ll do a bit

Why, I asked one actor, had he volunteered? ‘I was watching

of trespassing. I expect we’ll get away with it,’ he said as we climbed

England play Scotland, and with every try England scored I had another

a locked gate. The woods were awash with bluebells, red campion,

drink. I’m told I agreed.’ The church hall, with its Dad’s Army ambience,

was an ideal setting. (Inevitably, one of the sketches involved the Dad’s

One who might have saved the play was Rob Marks, an undoubted

Army characters.) The hall windows were taped against bomb blast;

star of the revue. In the spring he reached national finals of the Young

the walls were decorated with wartime posters – ‘Keep mum: she’s

Farmers’ drama competition. (He is an accountant, not a farmer, but

not so dumb’, ‘Carless talk costs live’ – and on the last night a meal

few ‘young farmers’ are. Today the association has become an all-

was served using only food that would have been available on rations.

embracing rural social organisation.) But during the summer he and

There were several show-stoppers: the rector in full clerical garb

his fiancée, teacher Beth Chard, had been forced to leave Chew Stoke

performing the Allan Bennet ‘is there a little bit of sardine in the corner

to find a house they could afford. They spent a year looking and were

of your life?’ routine; a concert party sketch, which included a verse

resentful that Chew Stoke offered nothing to people like them. ‘The

about our project, parodying the song Bless ‘Em All – They say that

shame is that it takes us away from village life. We were both involved

reporters are wandering Chew Stoke… / They’ll start with the Yew Tree

and both enjoyed it,’ said Rob.

I fear, / And then out of Wedlock [the landlord] they’ll hear / Such a

I lost count of the young who felt they had been denied the

fine spicy tale / it will make them turn pale / and implicate most of you

birthright of living where they had grown up. The hardest cases were

here – and a hilarious finale of drunken Scottish soldiers on parade.

people who work in the village but must live in Bristol. Clare Weatherley,

Andrew Troup, the producer, explained, ‘We wanted something

the village postwoman, was born on the Chew Stoke council estate and

that was funny, unsophisticated and allowed us to have a jolly good

is married to Tim, who works with her. During the property boom, they

evening. I enjoy seeing something created out of nothing, working

paid £45,000 for a house on the edge of Bristol. Today, they would get

with people under pressure. You get to know them far better than you

no more than £37,000 for it and are well and truly stuck. For Clare,

would in normal circumstances.’ When I remarked to one woman how

having to move from the village was ‘like cutting off a foot’.

successful the show had been, she replied, ‘It’s not exactly a village

As everywhere else in Britain, property values in Stoke have fallen

with straw in its hair.’ Sadly, a play planned for November had to be

sharply. I plotted the declining price of one three-bedroomed house.

cancelled because of a lack of male actors. Mr Troup spoke of drama

Over several months it fell from £154,740 to £147,950 to £129,950.

society ‘ennui’. Another thespian was blunter; ‘It’s falling apart at the

But on a national scale prices are high. The typical family home

seams.’

changes hands for about £200,000, and a tiny house in the village centre was sold in the autumn for £129,000. The difficulties facing young people were highlighted in the spring when five £250,000-plus houses were built, in a matter of weeks, in the heart of the village. The site was one corner of a large meadow which had belonged to a local hospital and has been sold in a trade-off that secured the rest of the field as a recreation area for the parish. The development appeared to defy green belt rules. Many villagers were unhappy. A would-be purchaser who telephoned from abroad for information was given short shrift. ‘What the hell are they doing coming from overseas?’ asked a villager whose adult children would love to return to Chew Stoke. Many villagers argue that the ‘executive home’ style of the new houses belongs in the stockbroker belt, not in a West Country village. They were denounced as ‘palaces’ at the annual parish meeting. One of those who bought one of the houses detected the latent hostility: ‘We’re here; we’re us; we are normal people and we won’t do anything to upset the village. We can’t be held responsible for the decision to build,’ he said defensively. Some villagers are convinced that Chew Stoke has been secretly designated a ‘rural Mayfair’, and that planning permission is granted only for up-market housing, but never for starter homes. I put the charge to David Davies, planning services manager for the local authority, Wansdyke Council. He explained that starter homes can be

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built on green belt, but it requires the co-operation of landowners. They

would have to be prepared to offer sites at a fraction of the commercial

bourgeois, were introduced. ‘They’ were usurping ‘us’, and the good old

rate. It Chew Stoke that would mean perhaps £20,000 as acre rather

days were lamented even by those far too young to have any memory

than £200,000, and, not surprisingly, there are few volunteers.

of them. The assault, although condemned on all sides, was seen as

While most pay lip service to the need for starter homes, some

symbolic. The next year it had practical consequences: the evening

believe that an influx of young people would harm Stoke. An estate agent

beer tent was abolished, and replaced by a genteel Sunday lunch. This

said, ‘The young have different lifestyles. They want facilities villages

was the last straw for some traditionalists, a few of whom claim that

don’t offer – discos and parties. They don’t blend.’ He suggested most

they no longer attend.

would be happier in town with ‘other young families on the doorstep’.

Unburdened by history, I can report that 1992’s event was a

He also challenged the moral argument that villagers are owed homes

success. A large blue and white marquee had been erected, in which

where they grew up. ‘We all start from humble beginnings and have to

a disco was held on the Friday evening for small children. The rector

work our way through success to live in a nice environment.’

arrived shoeless and, rather obscurely, with one sock off and one sock

One of those desperate for a starter home said the village had

on. The talk was of the weather which had not been good. Several

nothing to fear from the young. ‘We love the tranquillity, the peace. Of

women went home to cook. The most prized category on the morrow

course we would not be looking for discos. We would die to stay here,

would be the Victoria sandwich, for which a handsome silver rose bowl

just an opportunity to get back in the village.’

is awarded.

Some are luckier. A farmer’s daughter, married with two children,

By 6am four stalwarts were setting up tables for the flower and

gazed from her kitchen to a large garden and the fields beyond and

produce show. Rules were toughly enforced, often with some glee. A

said, ‘I have had the chance not everyone gets to come back. The idea

basket with six (rather than the stipulated five) eggs was disqualified –

of bringing up children in a town horrifies me. How do you entertain an

‘she’s out straight away’. The judging was professional. John Wheatley,

eight-year-old when there is only a pavement to play on? Look at this –

fresh from his triumph at the RHS dahlia show, judged flowers, fruit

the space, the freedom.’

and veg. He was handed a can of lager. ‘I always like to give my man

She had recently been to a concert at Wembley. ‘As we got

something to wet his whistle,’ said his minder.

near to London, I couldn’t think what dragged people to this place.

The weather was holding. ‘My husband had to work very hard

People are stone-faced, they don’t smile. They think that if they do,

to guarantee it’ said the rector’s wife. At the top of the field every

someone is going to take their space.’ A robust young woman said even

conceivable size and shape of dog was on show. An Alsatian towed a

Bristol alarmed her. ‘It frightens me to death. It’s dangerous to catch

small, tubby man at high speed. After several appeals for tug of war

someone’s eye.’

teams to present themselves, it became clear that only one had shown up, a band of muscular men wearing steel-tipped boots. The search was on for a team to pull against them. A teenager, cornered by his

The peace of Chew Stoke is rarely fractured, but a few years ago there was an incident that appears to have had a lasting impact. A

mother – a member of the committee – was protesting, ‘But these are professionals.’ ‘Nonsense,’ she replied, ‘they’re just a pub team.’

young man who had drunk too much threw a punch at a leading light

A man who had done some tugging in his time emerged from

among the incomers. The assault took place in the beer tent at the

behind the bar to instil technique and spirit into the scratch team. But

end of ‘Harvest Home’, a hallowed village institution that had already

when the great tug came, the pub men simply dug in their heels and

become a cause of contention between the old villagers and the new.

waited, while the wretched volunteers huffed and puffed, slithering

Celebrated on the first Saturday in September, Harvest Home

each and every way in their poor footwear. When this minor storm had

had once been a day of general village junketing: there were brass

blown itself out, the pub men pulled the scratch team over as if landing

and silver bands, a greasy pole, a funfair, flower and produce shows,

a small trout.

a tug of war that drew teams from far and wide, an evening beer tent. Before the war, families brought their own china, entertaining friends and relatives to tea and vying as to who had the best decorated table.

The lingering resentment that surrounds Harvest Home goes to

This was Chew Stoke’s little bit of Merrie England, and innovation was

the heart of Chew Stoke’s most contentious issue. Millions now live

bitterly resisted.

in homogenous suburbs, isolated from class friction, but in a village

Change, however, was inescapable. The family tables were

Disraeli’s two Englands exist cheek by jowl. ‘A great problem is trying

abandoned; the funfair was discontinued; the bands ceased to play. New

to integrate the two halves,’ said one incomer. ‘I don’t know if it is the

features such as a gymkhana, disdained by villagers as inappropriately

same in all villages, and I don’t know what people in the council houses

feel.’ Another added, ‘There is a certain amount of resentment from

‘Them and us’ extends even to the pubs. The Yew Tree, above the

those who have lived here all their lives seeing people like me moving

rectory, is the sort of bijou country inn which the middle classes usually

in and buying large houses. However, if tension does exist, it is not

fall on with cries of joy. Yet some incomers say they feel uncomfortable

readily apparent. We all rub along together.

there. In part, as one incomer noted, this is because the Yew Tree is

After listening to several dozen people on the topic, I would not

a boozer’s boozer, and the language can be strong. Regulars have a

take issue. A reporter who spends time anywhere – in a school, a

dread of summer invasion by trendy hoards: the food is pub basic

firm, a community – will attract complaints like a light attracts moths.

rather than pub fancy, and casual drinkers often retreat when they see

They often obscure rock-solid loyalties. Visit a regiment, and soldiers

the menu.

will moan about the NCOs, the food, the daily grind. But they will also

The landlord, John Wedlock, is living proof that not all village

knock any man down in a pub who says a word against their unit and,

characters lie buried in the churchyard. For many, he rivals the rector

when needs must, will die for their comrades and their cap badge.

as an admired elder. ‘He’s the finest publican in the valley,’ say the

So, in less dramatic terms, with Chew Stoke. Whatever bellyaches

faithful, which is to say ‘in the world’. Anecdotes gather about his

I heard, I met almost no one who would wish to live elsewhere and

22-year-tenure like laurels on a victor’s brow. Late at night, in broad

plenty who would dearly like to move in. I heard of a farmer who sold

Somerset and prefacing his stories with the words ‘if you put this in

up and moved out: he was so miserable that he came back and wept

the paper, Robert, I’m a dead man’, he told stirring tales of drinking

on the doorstep of his former home. However, there is a divide between

and gambling and Rabelaisian high jinks. In the morning, he was not

the two halves.

necessarily as sober as a judge, but he was discreet. Leaning on this

Though most incomers try to fit in, they are not always attuned to native sensibilities. An old-timer described their attitude as ‘a total

bar as if moulded to it, he answered questions like an opening batsman seeing of the new ball.

lack of empathy’. Like many working-class people, the old guard find

A Farmer’s widow described the Yew Tree as a ‘black hole’ and

themselves ill at ease among professionals. They withdraw, creating

a ‘geriatric youth club’, but smiled indulgently as the memory of the

a vacuum that is filled by newcomers, who then stand charged with

companionship her late husband had enjoyed down the years. ‘I

‘taking over’. As one villager put it, ‘The popular wisdom is that

couldn’t resent the fun they had.’

newcomers treat the place as a dormitory and don’t put much in. In reality, when the village show comes around, it is the newcomer who turns out and runs it. Then there is resentment.’ A farmer’s widow pinpointed the newcomers’ failure to appreciate the subtleties of what had been the village social structure. Most incomers, she said, found it hard to distinguish between the natives, regarding them collectively as rustics. ‘Accountants did not recognise the status of those who had previously run the village,’ she said. But she added, ‘Although it has become a commuting village, it has not had its heart ripped out.’ Betty Williams is one who makes an effort to straddle the two halves of the village. She was born locally and serves on the Harvest Home committee. She went into domestic service as a teenager, and is now matriarch of a large family. She admitted she was ‘a bit bitter’ when the first commuters arrived, but now says, ‘There would be no activities without new people. Villagers didn’t mix. They were suspicious of any stranger who bought a house.’ The parish council, however, is much like it used to be: its senior members are village-born – Ernest Hucker, Methodist elder and Chew Stoke historian, was first elected in 1946. Most are retired men, and one wag dubbed them the ‘politbureau’. The last election was not contested, and the council persuaded Joanna Brown, president of the WI, to stand in order to soften their image as an all-male cabal.

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One of Wedlock’s bevy of barmaids told how a couple who had been isolated in a new cul-de-sac broke into village life after they

to keep teenagers out – but its chief renown is as a haunt for serious cider drinkers.

started coming to the Yew Tree. ‘They had their best Christmas ever.

The Brueghels would have revelled in the lunchtime scene: half

People from the pub dropped in and invited them round.’ But she

a dozen worthies – retired tree-fellers, road-menders, farm labourers

added the cautionary tale of a man who had committed the sin of

– steadily drinking Thatcher’s cider at £1 a pint. The conversation

throwing his weight about – offering drinks all round – and boasting.

is lively: towards the end of the year, it was chiefly on royal topics.

He had been ostracised.

Xenophobia (to use a polite term) drifts in the air like the perpetual

The Stoke Inn on the main road has a chequered year, getting

cigarette smoke. Even Bristolians are ‘foreigners’. Surprisingly, we

through three landlords and being shut for a while. It is functional,

were welcome, though there was some fear that the cidermen’s wives

comprising two large rooms with nicotine ceilings. It hosts the village

would learn of their habit through our report. ‘My missus will kill I.

cricket team and there is a pool table where the young can play – in

You’ve caused some mischief with this survey.’ The idea that any of

the absence of a youth club is it hard for the most protective parent

their wives could be under the least of illusions was inconceivable.

The Headmistress

However, 1992 proved a difficult year. Owing to a complicated

If there is one institution that symbolises the change in

formula based on the number of pupils who entered in past

Chew Stoke from rural fastness to modern village, it is the

years, staffing was cut, despite rising enrolment. Some

primary school. Founded as a charity in 1718, it is now much

redundancies were needed, and able teachers – including the

sought after by aspiring parents, and its success and growing

deputy head – left for promotion elsewhere. Class sizes were

numbers – there are 157 children in the village – threaten

increased and extra-curricular activities were cut. By Christmas

smaller village schools. Every morning, cars dropping pupils

Mrs Balson was gloomy. ‘It has always been hard work, but life

off cause Chew Stoke’s only traffic jam.

had a certain element of fun. Now we feel totally ground down.

The school has voluntarily aided church status, and the

It is difficult to look back and think of the highlights.

day begins with an act of worship conducted by the head teacher Christine Balson. Children wearing royal blue or grey sweatshirts sat cross-legged on the floor. A name called by Mrs Balson was enough to quell minor indiscipline. Each class I visited had an attentive air. Seven-year-olds were writing a story about sharks. ‘They must have an adventure. It is too boring just to meet and marry,’ said their teacher. Mrs Balson, head since 1989, believes in progressive, child-oriented methods – ‘the whole business is about relationships; children see that we value them’ – but has a horror of the school being described as ‘trendy, lefty’. Spelling and formal maths are very much on the agenda, and there are sufficient numbers for there to be balanced sports teams. Half the pupils live in Stoke itself and include children whose families can be traced through the school register for generations. The majority of pupils have highly motivated parents and stable homes. ‘They have access to books and music; reading is taken for granted,’ said one teacher. ‘There is less need than in the inner city for pastoral care.’

There is of group of villagers which defies the simplistic ‘them’

commit him to some Mephistophelean pact. On another occasion

and ‘us’ division. In 1977 squatters move into Chew Stoke’s most

when I expressed an interest in meeting someone, I was told not to

prominent building, a former rectory on a wooded bluff above the

bother: it might take years to secure his confidence.

village. The house was built in 1880 by a rector with 13 children, who found the Tudor house too cramped. It remained the rectory until 1945 when it was bought by the Wills tobacco family and donated to a local hospital.

established that the institutions crucial to the well-being of any village

The squat was legitimised when it became a housing association

are the shop and the church. Chew Stoke is fortunate that both

and bought the building, but to most villagers the residents remain

are in safe and popular hands. If there is one man who is instantly

‘the squatters’. For some, this is simply a label, a neutral appellation;

recognisable, it is Keith Vivian, the rector. He stands 6ft 4½in tall

others still resent this seizure of such a desirable property and its

and what he weighs I shudder to speculate. As a young man he was

acquisition at what was considered a knock-down price.

a distinguished rugby second row forward, playing for Harlequins and

However alternative the squatters’ lifestyle when they arrived,

captaining Warwickshire. His writ runs far beyond the village faithful,

they have matured into fairly conventional early middle age. Some run a

though they are numerous, largely because of his influence. He is, in

timber business, concerned with landscape, arboriculture and joinery;

a sense, both parson and squire. ‘Keith is not one who shuns people

one works in a garden centre; one is an artist; and one operates a

who don’t go near the church,’ said a church warden. ‘He knits the

small healing centre. Some of the property has been converted

village together. Chew Stoke is very envied for having him.’

into accommodation for the retired and handicapped. Recently, the

It is Mr Vivian’s informal presence to which the village responds

residents of the Old Rectory spearheaded a tree-planting drive on the

so warmly. He was ordained in middle age after a career in teaching,

newly acquired rectory field.

and came to Chew Stoke in 1985. In his view, the parson is essential

Yet they remain a third force. They are well-educated, several

to country life. ‘The church has a lot of meaning for people who may

graduates among them, green (bread-making on Sunday morning),

only come twice a year. Call it folklore. This is lost in towns where clergy

middle class in such tastes as decent red wine. Politically they are to

deal mainly with the faithful. If you suggested closing this church,

the left, sympathising with local aspirations for starter homes.

there’d be uproar. People who seldom darken its door would be coming

As one said, ‘It is in the incomers’ interests to fight on behalf of the villagers, or they will destroy what they came to enjoy. If they turn the village into a kind of museum, it will no longer be the place that attracted them.’

out of the rocks: “It’s our church”. Some might scoff at that. I don’t. I sometimes feel we’ve got little enough left in England.’ Mr Vivian is also rector of the hamlets of Nempnett Thrubwell and Norton Malreward, and Sunday is a steeplechase as he dashes from

A woman who watched the ‘rectory people’s’ progress with

church to church, carrying his vestments in a battered blue suitcase.

interest described their gradual assimilation into the Yew Tree. ‘They

As I walked to early service in Chew Stoke, I heard a cuckoo call and

were known as the “Guinness Brigade” because the women drank

the distant plop of a shotgun. A passing parish councillor warned me

pints of the stuff,” she said. ‘They were ex-hippies who talked about

not to be led astray by the rector after the service.

anything – the third world, politics, the price of coal. It was stimulating.

We prayed for peace in Africa, Yugoslavia, Ireland and Asia, and

A few years ago they would be in one corner and the villagers in

outside a dove cooed. There were 13 communicants. Time for coffee

another. Village talk was often incredibly mundane. Now there’s an

and then on to Norton Malreward, where a car boot sale in aid of the

open forum. People speak together and are even prepared to talk

village hall cut the attendance to seven. Mr Vivian gave a short sermon

about their feelings.’

on Lazarus, and we rushed back to Stoke with five minutes to spare for

This woman, who arrived ten years ago as a divorcee, gave a

a family service conducted largely by children.

graphic account of her own early years. ‘When I entered a pub, it felt as

Audrey Vivian, who teaches English at Chew Valley School, had

though I was walking in naked. People couldn’t place this emancipated

cooked a crown roast, a real parson’s lunch. The rectory, which is said

single mother. Even my boyfriend’s friends took months to talk to me.

to be the oldest in England still inhabited by a working clergyman, has

They were very clannish.’

a charm and character that enhances the Vivian ministry, and must be

I encountered the caution of which she spoke. One young villager offered to introduce me to some of her contemporaries. The

Last April, a survey published in Countryweek magazine

the envy of most C of E clergy. After lunch it was back to Norton for a christening.

few who turned up stood back from the table where she and I talked.

The main Stoke service is Sunday evensong. Several villagers

One refused to even accept a glass of beer from me, as if that might

said it set them up for the week. This day a children’s corner and a

year Chew Stoke finally got serious about Neighbourhood Watch. He addressed the annual parish meeting drawing an unprecedented 60 villagers, and in the following months advised on how to translate good intentions into effective practice. The days (if they ever existed) when villagers left doors unlocked are long gone, and rural crime is growing at an unprecedented rate. From April to August last year there were 41 break-ins in the village, including three at the school, and property worth £60,000 was taken. ‘They can be back over the hill into south Bristol before the alarm has been raised,’ said Mr Spedding. A policeman who is close to his community has no need to come down heavily on minor infringements. ‘You know them, and they know you, and they know that you know them. If I go overboard on the petty stuff, I’m going to get a reputation for being pernickety and I’m not going to get any help. That may not be the official line, but it’s the only way to go.’ We joined Mr Spedding for a day. Driving a diesel Ford Escort with the acceleration of a pony and trap, he called to

The Policeman

warn a woman whose dogs had been menacing passers-by;

By a stroke of good fortune Chew Stoke has in its centre a police

advised a man of stringent new regulations for the keeping

house. By a stroke of better fortune, its incumbent for the past

of shotguns; asked a farmer to clear mud from the road;

ten years has been Ian Spedding, self-described ‘sheriff’ – a

inspected a car that had been stolen and burnt out (an

neighbourhood policeman who both knows the people on his

increasing phenomenon); stopped numerous drivers without

patch and has their respect. He is as close to being an old-

seat belts; and checked the identity of young people in a

fashioned ‘village bobby’ as any officer left in England.

battered mini. It was not a day of excitements, but I think it

PC Spedding was in much demand during 1992, the

would have reassured the people of the Chew Valley.

book of remembrance were to be dedicated and the preacher was the

The village shop is situated on the elbow of the main road. ‘It is

Archdeacon of Bath. There was a 200-capacity congregation, and late

the hub of the village. If I want to hear any news I go down there,’ said

arrivals had to do without prayer books.

a parish councillor. It changed hands in 1991, ‘saved’ by Fiona Yianni,

During the year Mr Vivian ran a ‘talent’ fundraising scheme.

who had been living in Stoke for five years. There are six supermarkets

He gave 20 participants £10 each, which they invested in an event

within driving range where some items sell for less than a village shop

or an idea that would earn the parish money. People staged coffee

can buy them wholesale, so Mrs Yianni’s venture took guts. But she

mornings, a bridge evening, a ‘wassail’, barbecues, the New Year’s Eve

was used to working, her youngest was off to school and she has

barn dance. Mrs ‘Topsy’ Wedlake, an indomitable victim of multiple

affection for her adopted village – she is also a school governor and a

sclerosis, who drives an electric tricycle around the lane of Stoke with

pillar of the Sunday school. ‘We know that we are not going to make a

the panache of Boadicea, held a coffee morning and plant sale. One

fortune,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t the reason for taking it on. I enjoy the

hundred people came to her cottage beside the brook, and she raised

role the shop plays in the village, and feel that we’re helping people to

£336. ‘ There was nothing else I could do, only entertain,’ she said. It

be involved.’

was enough.

During a morning, several dozen people pass through, and

information is traded faster than sliced ham. There is a bentwood chair on which the elderly can linger; the minutest transaction can take half an hour. As one man said, ‘When my wife announces that is is “just popping to the shop”, I say “OK, I’ll see to lunch.”’ Cliques gather. One man became so engrossed that he walked home having forgotten that he has come to the shop by car. Yet in a couple of hours the equivalent of little more than one supermarket trolley of goods has been bought. Mrs Yianni said, ‘It’s a range of bits and pieces. “Can you put this aside for me?” “Is it my bread day today?” “I’ll owe you 6p until Wednesday.”’ Purchases are taken away in paper bags bearing the words ‘Save petrol. Shop locally’. Yet, despite the strong verbal and emotional support for the shop, some prominent Chew Stokers rarely cross the threshold. For the moment that brings grief to Mrs Yianni: ultimately it could bring disaster to the village. It was logical that Mrs Yianni should have been approached to fill a vacancy on the village charity committee. At Christmas, the charity, created 40 years ago by uniting several tiny village endowments, distributed a grand total of £115 to 14 villagers, mainly pensioners. There are people in Chew Stoke who look hard up but the accepted wisdom is that there is no real poverty. The committee, meeting over a green baize table cloth in the rectory, wracked its collective brain in

Caption Xxxxxxxxx

vain to think of the 15th recipient. There is however, more than meets the eye within the valley: I

A craftsman with a small workshop described the dramatic falling-

heard whispers of dark secrets and macabre situations that might

off in trade: ‘Everyone took a deep breath and stopped spending,’ he

have been lifted from the pages of Cold Comfort Farm. A woman

said. ‘The phone ceased ringing. We thought it had broken. Money

who overheard talk about a major robbery was warned to keep her

is still here but is just not in circulation.’ He mentioned one villager

mouth shut. And above Chew Stoke there are families who live like

working again after months of unemployment. ‘Do you think he is going

hillbillies in tumbledown conditions. A few cottages and farms are so

to start spending after the way he was kicked in the balls?’

dilapidated that no passer-by would think they are occupied. Some

This man has a unit at Fairseat Farm, once the Hucker family

have no electricity and either a cold tap or well. One outlying clan

dairy, and now a series of industrial and commercial units owned by

was described as ‘archetypal poachers – in the Wild West they would

Joanna Brown and her husband, Alan. It is a model for creating business

have been hanged as horse thieves’. Occasionally there is still cattle

opportunities in the countryside: the same number of people – 24 –

rustling; a few years ago farmers formed a posse to patrol the fields

work there today as were employed in the heyday of the dairy. It was

at night. Rustic figures appear in the village who look as if they have

recently visited by a group from Africa looking at strategies to create

strayed from a Hardy novel.

rural employment. Alan Brown himself runs a woodworking business. Other businesses on the site include a television and radio retailer/ repairer, an interior designer, secretarial services, a photographer, a

Chew Stoke is not immune to the recession. Manual workers have

company that re-inks computer primer ribbons, an artist’s studio and

lost jobs ‘on the council’, mending roads, working in parks. Wives take

a florist. The complex not only provides work opportunities but brings

the stain, doing small jobs such as cleaning, serving school lunches.

services to the country for which people once had to go to Bristol.

High-powered incomers have been made redundant. The rector said,

Chew Stoke has one major firm, Radford, which employs 240

‘The worst part of my job is comforting people whose worlds have

people manufacturing refrigeration units for supermarkets. It also is

collapsed. For a short period they suffer terrible anger, resentment

on the site of a former dairy, the Mendip Purity Milk Company. After

and powerlessness. One minute swanning round America and the next

several years of boom created by legislation which forced shops to

minute here, wondering what they are going to do today.’

upgrade hygiene standard – the in-house joke was ‘don’t answer the

the village team is contributing to the survival of the game,’ said Mr Barnes. Loyalty is such that when one player left, his wife continued making sandwiches for the cricket teas. The field, called Hedgehogs, is tended by the players. This day, on a slow pitch, Chew Stoke won comfortably against a Civil Service side. The most flamboyant team is the women’s rugby side, the ‘Valley Cats’. They held a boozy dinner presided over with cheerful vulgarity by Alison Chubb, a daughter of the village and captain of the team. The evening was as lewd and boisterous as any male rugby evening. These jollities, together with encounters with players from time to time, in the Yew Tree, seemed at odds with reports that the team took matches seriously and were fit and well drilled. However, a charity game against men, although played largely for laughs, showed positional discipline and talent, and one or two of Valley Cat backs ran like gazelles.

Farming, Chew Stoke’s ancient raison d’être, coexists with its principal modern activity, commuting. Neville Cole, who farms 270 acres in parcels of land all round the village, stood in an orchard surrounded by his cattle. ‘They’re intelligent enough to know that the Caption Xxxxxxxxx

road is dangerous. They stand at the gate and see the cars whizzing by, and they’re not prepared to cross. They’re not such dumb animals.’ To

phone, it might be another order’ – Radford suffered a reaction last year and has to lay off 60 workers.

move them any distance, Mr Cole has to take them by lorry. The idea of getting in a car and driving to work in a city is

The village has a slightly uneasy relationship with the company.

anathema to him. I’d rather be living in strict poverty than have to go

During the years of copious overtime people complained about the

into Bristol each day,’ he said. ‘You can’t put a value on being able to

noise of fork-lift tracks, the glare of lights and the rumble of heavy

wake up in the morning with all this around you. It never ceases to

lorries. Radford has never employed many Chew Stokers – there is a

please me to see a nice bunch of cattle.’ He is delighted that one of

mismatch between village skills and professions and the jobs available.

his grandsons appears to have the makings of a farmer: ‘He stands

However, Don Radford, its founder, performed a supreme service

still and the cattle come to him. They lick him and he doesn’t flinch.’

for Stoke. Eight years ago, shortly before his death, he donated a

The Coles were always immediately welcoming. After a roast beef

bowling club. ‘For retired people it’s a godsend. We used to play

lunch, I rose to help Anne Cole clear the table. ‘Sit still,’ commanded

soccer and cricket and this brings us back together,’ said one member.

Neville. ‘I never washed up before I was married and I haven’t since.’

It is also a pastime for husbands and wives – nearly 60 of the 170

As a boy he had been ‘spoilt to death’ by his mother, who even laid out

members are women – and it involves people from both sides of

his clothes and cleaned his shoes on the nights he went out. Which

the village.

is not to say that he hasn’t worked hours that would be tolerated only

Cricket also brings disparate villagers together. The day I watched

by someone raised on a farm. For the first 20 years of his working life

there were fitters, an accountant with his own business, a plumber’s

he had only four days off from milking the cows – for his honeymoon.

son, a man who ran an auto-repair firm and two farmers’ sons on the

Mr Cole rises at 5.30 each morning, as the first commuters surge

team. The only player who didn’t live in the village drinks there. The

out of the village, and is still at work as they pour back. Commuters

team belongs to a league but its chairman Morris Barnes said, ‘We like

to Bristol take between 25 and 40 minutes morning and evening, a

to win, but no one is going to shed any tears if we lose a game. People

journey time that has increased by 15 minutes over the past decade

enjoy their cricket.’

as more people have migrated to villages.

Star players often move to better teams, which makes spaces

Some Chew Stokers make far longer journeys. Steve Limburn

for youngsters. ‘If we can get two or three new players each year,

flies on Mondays to Brussels, returning on Fridays. David Smith travels

back and forth to London, taking two-and-a-half hours each way and

by life without city amenities as some Chew Stokers are appalled by

spending nearly £5,000 on his ticket and parking. Mr Smith leaves

the size, pace, anonymity and hostility of even a relatively slow-paced

at 5.40am for Bath station and is home at about 7pm. ‘I have to go

city like Bristol.

to bed early or I wouldn’t survive it.’ He doesn’t work on the train but

Some who questioned why we chose Chew Stoke later asked if I

reads papers and novels. On his return, he sometimes has to stand as

would like to live there. The answer has to be a polite ‘no’. My spirits

far as Reading.

always lifted as I crested Dundry Hill and saw the Chew Valley spread

On one of my last evenings in Chew Stoke, I sat in a cottage

beneath me, and I felt a sense of regret every time I drove back to

on the main road as the evening rush gathered pace outside. There

London. But I knew what I enjoyed was the pleasure of change, short

were logs on the fire, a cat on the sofa, teapots on a shelf, a piano.

breaks from reality. I would, however, be sad if I never saw Chew Stoke

Chocolate biscuits and tea were served off real china. It seemed so

again. Others might be only too happy.

safe and cosy. My hostess described her arrival 20-plus years ago. ‘I had one small child and was pregnant. I looked out of the window at the people passing and was really quite miserable. I thought, “I will never get to know any of them.”’ She is now as much part of Chew Stoke as the village shop.

I enjoyed my year in Chew Stoke. I stayed comfortably at the Orchard House B&B. It was rare to walk through the village without meeting people I knew. There were homes I could drop into and be sure of a welcome, and often instant hospitality. I got a torch, so I no longer stumbled into holes or hedges on dark nights. When I was away I missed the news. In December the village made national front pages and, if you didn’t blink, television news, when the brook twice flooded, cutting the lane to the school and causing the children to be sent home early. It was more picturesque than threatening (elsewhere in the West Country communities faced real emergencies), but memories were stirred of the grim 1968 flood. Stuck in London, I felt an immense urge to rush to ‘my’ village to help. Gossip is one of the charms or curses of village life, depending on one’s temperament. A Chew Stoke rumour mill churns out misinformation at twice the rate of any tabloid paper. Villagers told me how they had been confidently and erroneously informed by acquaintances that they were about to swap houses, move or buy the village shop. As I sat that evening by the cottage fireside, my hostess announced firmly, ‘I only know one thing about you. You are a vegetarian.’ I couldn’t have been more amazed – or she more wrong – if she had said I was a Hungarian. When I expostulated, she said with a disarming smile, ‘Well, it is a village you know.’ I offer no judgements as to whether town or country life is superior. My perception is that it is horses for courses. I was struck by how often ‘incomers’ had been raised in villages. There are town people and there are country people, and childhood influences often determine who is which. My own teenage children would be as horrified

Prayer at Methodist Chapel

Primary School

Nursery class

Women’s rugby match

School canteen

Jumble sale

Harvest Home

Harvest Home competition

Baby weighing at the Women’s Institute

Judging marmalade

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

Harvest Home

Chew Stoke charity meeting

Raffle

Father Christmas

Yew Tree Inn (now closed)

Aerobics class in the village hall

Fitness class

Pilgrims Brook opinion-former held by Berkeley Homes the developers

The Vicar

‘In the absence of a youth club, teenagers gather in the pool room of The Stoke Inn’

‘A boozy Christmas dinner for The Vallet Cats, the women’s rugby team’

Yew Tree Inn (now closed)

School fete

Amateur dramatics

Preparations for the Annual Review held in March is hosted by the Amateur Dramatics Society

The annual review

The Annual Review held in March is hosted by the Dramatics Society

Celebrations

New Years Eve barn dance in the Village Hall

100

Birthday party

101

Born in Surrey on 23 May 1952, Martin Parr is one of the best-known

while the politicians came and went, the politics behind them did not.

photographers of his generation. A member of the world-famous Magnum

When Labour finally won in 1997, it was under Tony Blair and New Labour,

Photos collective, he’s carved out a career shooting mordant documentary

both later cited by Thatcher as her greatest achievements because they

images, everyday scenes seen with a humorous, sometimes satirical eye.

followed her line so closely. Something fundamental was happening

It’s a vision that’s clearly on show in this book, a selection of images Parr

to British culture, something related to individualism, competition, and

took in the village of Chew Stoke in 1992 while on commission for The

materialism, not village fetes or nights in the local. As Thatcher put it in

Telegraph Magazine. Parr shot Chew Stoke over the entire year, making

1987, “Who is society? There’s no such thing!”

regular trips from his home in nearby Bristol, sometimes accompanied by the journalist Robert Chesshyre. He amassed thousands of images

In his article, Chesshyre writes about people brought up in Chew Stoke

in doing so and the finished article was unusually long, even for the tail

who found themselves priced out of the housing market; his article opens

end of the golden era of colour supplements. Stretching to over 16 pages

with Andy Winsley, who was one of Chew Stoke’s last farm labourers but

plus a front cover, it featured 44 shots and over 9000 words.

was compelled to commute there from Bristol. Chesshyre speaks to an estate agent who challenges the argument that villagers “are owed

Here he’s made a new edit, adding more photographs and removing

homes where they grew up”, though, stating: “We all start from humble

some published at the time; what emerges is an affectionate portrait

beginnings and have to work our way though success to live in a nice

of a place, a vision that’s perhaps surprisingly warm for a photographer

environment”. Even in apparently sleepy Chew Stoke, a new philosophy

known for irony. The images start off with men on their own, delivering

was speaking of rivalry, money, and survival of the fittest.

milk or their sons to school, using power tools to control their gardens, but this quickly gives way to group scenes, to people playing cricket, or

It’s ground Chesshyre had covered before. He had spent several years

serving up tea, or having a drink in the pub. It’s hard to resist the two

in the US as the Observer’s Washington correspondent and, when he

parting shots, which both show people embracing. Chew Stoke doesn’t

returned to the UK in the mid-80s, found himself so shocked by Thatcher’s

look perfect but it does look like a community, and there’s a sense

changes that he wrote a book about it. The Return of the Native Reporter

of timelessness too. There are photographs of annual events, of the

was published in 1987. “Born in the 1940s and growing up in a society

coming and going of the seasons. There are even images of a wedding, a

that became more harmonious (the war had created a “we are all in this

Christening, and a funeral.

together” spirit that survived long after the last of Hitler’s bombs fell), I was in 1987 deeply disturbed by what I found,” he later wrote.

The Telegraph played up to this cyclical sense of time, its cover shot showing a pot of lemon curd labelled July 1992; in July 1993 there would

In 1989 Chesshyre and Parr had paired up to publish The Cost of Living,

be another pot, it’s implied, just as there had been in July 1991. The

a reflection on a decade of Thatcherism in which Parr’s images show an

coverline read “A year in the life of an English village” and inside the

increasingly wealthy middle class and Chesshyre’s text explores a newly

headline stated “Once upon a time in Chew Stoke”, with the repetitive lull

individualistic consumer culture. “We are highly mobile, rarely living

of a fairy tale. And yet Chew Stoke in July 1992 was a particular time and

near our relations, and are thrust, therefore, in upon the nuclear family,

place, and Parr’s images also attest to that fact. There’s a sign advertising

creating a self-absorption that trembles perilously close to selfishness,”

new homes, for example, pointing to changes Chesshyre discussed in his

he writes. “We reassure ourselves that we are decent people, even as

text; there’s a flood which now, with the benefit of hindsight, suggests

we haul the large plastic bags bearing designer labels through the front

climate change. Chew Stoke wasn’t timeless at all, it seems, and 30

door.” It’s a vision that seems worlds away from Chew Stoke’s jumble

years on it’s not the same. The Yew Tree pub is now closed, Parr tells me

sale but it’s there in the images, in the richly, newly decorated home of

in tones of amazement, adding that, when he was shooting, it was the

a young family, or the shot of Andrew Troup driving his sons to private

centre of life in the village.

schools in Bristol. These factors make it surprising, at first sight, that this story was

102

In retrospect Chew Stoke can be read as a microcosm of wider changes,

published by The Telegraph Magazine, because The Telegraph is well

changes which were already bedding in and altering Britain for ever. In

known for supporting the Conservatives, who it has endorsed in every

April 1992 the Conservative Party won its fourth consecutive term in

election since 1945. But The Telegraph Magazine was a different kettle

government, its first after unceremoniously ditching Margaret Thatcher;

of fish then, staffed by a team which included the picture editor Michael

Thatcher’s neoliberal policies had been firmly entrenched, however, so

Collins and editor Nigel Horne, who were situated closer to the political

centre. Perhaps too this critical stance on Thatcherism was a sign of

The question, perhaps, was how much Parr was part of the world he was

the times because, although the Tories were re-elected in April 1992,

satirising, how much he typified something individualistic, even selfish,

they weren’t flying high. The UK was then just emerging from recession,

and how much he was critiquing that culture. For his part, he maintains

unemployment was hitting three million and, by Black Wednesday on

his images are neutral, or at least treat everyone equally ironically. The

16 September, it was forced to suspend the pound from the European

Cost of Living seems to back up his point, taking a satirical look at the

exchange rate mechanism. Even the Conservatives’ friends were getting

better-off; projects such as One Day Trip (1989), also made with Robert

impatient.

Chesshyre, Signs of the Times: A Portrait of the Nation’s Tastes (1992), and Common Sense (1995-1999) suggest his target was consumerism,

In other ways The Telegraph Magazine was also part of the zeitgeist

not individuals or particular communities. Either way, his critique seems

however, the newfound materialism and competitive culture. It was

less pointed in Chew Stoke, perhaps because this village contained a mix

launched in 1964, just two years after The Sunday Times Magazine

of people and classes, perhaps too because he visited it so often.

launched the first colour supplement, and, like all the colour supplements, was launched to cater for glossy advertising. There’s an ad in the Chew

Dropping in and out of the community over 12 months he became part

Stoke layout, placed by the Cyprus Tourism Association and Cyprus

of it in some way; at the end of the year he organised an exhibition of

Airways, and picturing a glamorous woman alone in the sea; it asks “Why

his work in the village hall. He made prints for anyone in the shots, and

follow the herd when you can follow a turtle?” Cyprus is exclusive, “A

says the locals’ response was enthusiastic. He now hopes to return to

very different island from the rest”, the text adds (though reassuring that

Chew Stoke to exhibit his work again, and it’s intriguing to speculate on

“English is spoken and you drive on the left”). There’s an emphasis on

the changes he’ll find. Some, like the closure of the pub, seem like a

getting ahead, with the kind of community Parr is depicting repositioned

shame. Others might be for the better. His original shots suggest Chew

as a bovine herd.

Stoke was fairly divided along gender lines, for example, the men playing cricket while the women readied the tea, while ethnic minorities are not

But Parr’s position is also interesting because, while he was 40 and

seen at all.

a fast-rising star in 1992, he also had his critics. The Last Resort, photographs of a fading Northern seaside town he’d shot between 1983

In Parr’s images these absurdities are picked out by a sense of irony,

and 1985, had been published as a book and exhibited at London’s

in the deferential way an older lady smiles at a jacketed man, another

Serpentine Gallery in 1986, and attracted both acclaim and fierce

woman, more pain-faced, lurking in the background. It’s an irony that

critique. Its depiction of working-class holidaymakers was felt by some to

seems humorous rather than biting, the kind of humour that helps people

be mocking and even cruel; few took the alternative tack, that the images

rub along rather than forces them apart. It’s the kind of familiar teasing,

might question the circumstances in which people were forced to find

perhaps, that notes peculiarities but keeps its subject on side – the kind

fun. Parr was perceived as an outsider, of a higher class and exploiting

of humour, in fact, that Chesshyre found in Chew Stoke, and that threads

his subjects for his own gain; there’s even as sense in which his approach

through his text. “As one man said, ‘When my wife announces that she

was understood as a kind of acquisitiveness, a plundering of the scene.

is “just popping to the shop”, I say “OK, I’ll see to lunch”.’ It will take the wife some time because she’ll be chatting, catching up with neighbours

In 1988 Parr had applied to join the prestigious Magnum Photos, an

rather than getting into a frenzy of consumerism.

agency set up by post-war leftists such as Robert Capa and Henri CartierBresson and based on principles of Humanist Photography – the idea

For me this kind of comedy speaks of intimacy, of knowing people and

that everyday scenes could celebrate, and hopefully elevate, ordinary

their proclivities but meeting them with tolerance. By contrast, some of

people. When Parr applied for full membership in 1994, documentary

the Chew Stokers are appalled by the anonymity and hostility of nearby

photographer Philip Jones Griffiths circulated a plea to other members

Bristol, and by London’s perceived lack of warmth and community.

not to admit him. Parr won the necessary two-thirds majority by one

“People are stone-faced, they don’t smile,” says one resident about the

vote, but suspicion remained and, when Cartier Bresson came to the

UK’s capital. “They think that if they do, someone is going to take their

opening of Parr’s Small World exhibition in 1995, he famously told Parr

space.”

he was from another planet. “I know what you mean, but why shoot the messenger?” Parr replied.

Diane Smyth

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© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos This work was commissioned by the Telegraph magazine, so thanks to Nigel Horne and Michael Collins The team at the Martin Parr Foundation. Josie and Rudi from RRB. Robert Chesshrye for his writing. Finally Thanks to everyone in Chew Stoke who made us feel very welcome.

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