The cricket tea

Minty has been too keen, always a solecism with any sporting event. She was overly thrilled, as someone who has only lived in the village for five years, to be asked to help with the cricket tea when Chipping Somborne played Stoke Mercy, but failed to grasp the essentials. They are: cucumber sandwiches (without crusts), egg sandwiches, ham sandwiches (easy on the mustard but cress allowed); soggy chocolate cake and sticky ginger cake. Her innovative efforts with baby

sausages, wrested from the Farm Shop at birth and infused with Marmite (their new line) then rolled personally by Minty in honey and sesame, were waaay too thrilling. Finger-lickin’, which could with honeyed fingers lead to ball tampering.

Susie, Mary and Patty think Minty, who seemed such a nice mouse when she came to the village as Araminta, is getting les idées au-dessus de sa gare. In addition to the sausage debacle, she has made chocolate brownies. “I bet they’re ready-mix Betty Crocker,” says Susie. Mary is enraged by the pea, mint and beetroot mini-Scotch eggs that she, too, saw on offer in Waitrose. Is this Minty trying to flirt with the chaps? Even Bernard from the Stoat & Weasel looks relevantly attractive in his whites.

Minty has inadvertently, through the gaffe of trying too hard, alienated the Stepford Wives. Just as it was all going so frightfully well. She’s joined the painting class, volunteers at the community shop and does the flowers for the church. What more blood does Chipping Somborne want from her stone? So what if she thinks The Ashes are something in her wood-burning stove. The wives (“Our family has been here since the War. The First War,” says Patty, with a freezing smile) want everything to be the same because it is a way of stopping everything changing. They’re leaving that to Boris and Brexit.

Meanwhile, leather must hit willow, the gentle applause rippling on the wind, Harrison will be perpetually anxious about the Ambridge team in The Archers, the wives can gossip about That Meghan and there’ll always be an England while there are crustless cucumber sandwiches.

Minty’s efforts with baby sausages were waaay too thrilling

Victoria Mather

There’ll Always Be An England: Social Stereotypes from The Daily Telegraph by Victoria Mather and Sue Macartney-Snape (Constable, £12.99).