Townies moving to the sticks are in the dark about rural street lights

Some years ago, we went camping with a few other families to a remote field in Suffolk. The facilities were basic but the views breathtaking, and we chatted round the campfire until late.

In the morning, one of my city friends reported she had barely slept a wink and wanted to lodge a complaint with the site owner. She said she hadn’t been able to get to sleep because the farmer had left an “enormous lamp” on all night. After an awkward pause, I explained that the enormous lamp was actually the moon. My, how we laughed.

I thought of her when I read how the Government’s climate adviser, who wants to phase out rural street lighting, is attempting to manage the expectations of newcomers. “When people move into the countryside, you just have to say to them: ‘This is not the town. We do not have street lighting in this village, you have a torch – that’s just how we do it’,” Lord Deben, chairman of the independent Climate Change Committee said.

It’s strange how townies move to the country for a radical change of lifestyle, only to sound off about the shortcomings of their new environment. If they’re not fulminating about church bells sounding or cockerels crowing, they’re getting irate at tractors “blocking” the roads.

So I wish Lord Deben the best of luck in his Maglite ecocrusade. Maybe he should point out that meddling outsiders who continue to bang on about environmentally spendthrift street lights could end up being greeted with flaming torches instead…