Rural idyll is lacking the whiff of reality

THINGS are different in the countryside. That is what I thought one day this week staring down into a pit of unsavoury horror.

If there’s a sewerage failure in a town or city it is always someone else’s problem. If you live in a cottage in remote countryside, it is your nightmare.

Pumps, holding tanks, soakaways… No need to go into grim detail for obvious reasons – suffice to say we’re talking proper sums of money. Bills which no city-dweller will ever have to pay.

Then there’s Sod’s Law. The one which says: if it can go wrong, it will. In my case: the slight hitch that old corroded metal pipework is fastened to more flimsy plastic piping which has a crack in it. So engineers dare not carry on with the job. They must come back another day to dig a trench in order to replace the plastic pipework before they can get to the stuff which had the problem in the first place.

I am not complaining. They are good lads who know what they are doing. The hitch is not of their making. It is just Sod’s Law.

Also not complaining because we are fortunate to live in a beautiful national park. I have been telling myself that more than ever over the past year. The space! The freedom to wander without seeing a soul! What’s not to like about remoteness during a pandemic?

But the difference between town and country is occasionally worth mentioning, because the modern British narrative often paints a portrait of a dreamy rural existence behind the hedgerows in stark contrast to dark and threatening images of urban life.

We hear about ‘inner city problems’ or ‘urban decay’, but there’s rarely talk of the rural equivalent.

Town and city folk come on holiday to the countryside and spend quite a bit of money doing it. Having saved up for their break, the visitor sits back to enjoy the peace, quiet and exquisite views – and thinks: “How lovely! It would be nice to live in such a place. But how could we afford it? We could hardly save enough for this brief holiday – so living in the countryside is out of the question. It’s a place for rich people.”

And, yes, there are wealthy people who live out in the sticks. But there are a lot more ‘ordinary’ working people. And we all know how rural wages compare to those of the city. All my London acquaintances earn two to three times the amount they’d be paid in the countryside. And not one of them has a private sewerage system to worry about.

Of course, they face hugely inflated property prices when it comes to putting a roof over their heads. But that is happening here, according to reports in the West Country this week, which show property prices have climbed by more than 10 per cent in the past year.

And that will escalate again once the region has been swamped with visitors like never before. Everyone I talk with nowadays – from Taunton to Truro, from Barnstaple to Bryher – is saying things like: “Are you ready for the big onslaught? It’s going to be the busiest summer ever!”

A crowded Cornwall. A Devon in demand. A deluged Dorset and saturated Somerset. And we locals – ground down by grockles, eviscerated by emmets. If abroad isn’t happening, then the pleasant seaside acres of the South West are going to be the number one target zone.

It is what it is. We mustn’t complain. Who would deny anyone a holiday? Good for trade and employment. Great for the regional economy. But…

As I gazed into my sewerage tank, another word came to mind. I’ll not use it here, but I did wonder how many visitors eying up pretty cottages for potential purchase will get a genuine sniff when it comes to the realities of rural life.

The Victorians coined the phrase ‘rural idyll’ as they painted watercolours of quaint thatched cottages, which the inhabitants couldn’t wait to quit. And leave those damp dark places is exactly what they did once council houses became available.

Now those same old dwellings swap hands for millions of pounds – and a good many ex-council homes aren’t far behind, as long as they’ve the right kind of view.

Because the dream of the rural idyll still exists. Until, that is, a pong starts emanating from the soakaway.

Or the broadband speed sinks to zero. Or the phone signal vanishes without trace. Or the nearest plumber can’t get to you for a month because he’s based 30 miles away and his Polish workers all went back to Krakow after Brexit. Or there is no home-help for your elderly mum because there aren’t enough staff. Or the village mechanic can’t mend your car because it needs to go to a distant dealership with the right computer. Which is a real drag because the last service bus to your community disappeared over the horizon in 2004.

I could fill this column ten-times over with a list like that, but haven’t time now, thanks to an inevitable call of nature. And, given my sewerage problems, I might be some time – as Captain Oates said, as he left Scott to do the same thing exactly 110 years ago.

We hear about ‘inner city problems’ but there’s rarely talk of the rural equivalent