By Arabella Yandle
Somerset is beautiful. I have lived here for the majority of the last 23 years so I can attest to that fact, but it is also the loneliest place I have ever lived. I have lived in some of the biggest cities in the world and in many places in the UK but nowhere have I felt so a lone or isolated than Somerset and the current crisis has made me think again about why that might be.
Somerset is full of communities in the geographical, human dynamics sense of the word. The population is spread fairly evenly through the county. There are no big cities, no conglomerations, just rural market towns and countless small villages and hamlets. It sounds idyllic and it certainly is picturesque but they are not communities in the social sense and that is what is unusual and gets me wondering about the true nature of community and why it is so difficult to find here. The conclusion I have come to after 23 years, which is thrown into such stark relief in the current situation, is that it is related to class, culture, urban planning and the car. People in Somerset have either been here for generations or have moved in. The former are a very closed community. You might get a ‘hello’ in the street – you might even get a chat, but you will rarely get through the door and offers for them to come to yours will never get taken up. The vast majority of the people who have moved in are better off so either live in more isolated houses or in the ‘better’ parts of town and don’t naturally mix locally. Lack of public transport and local infrastructure means that you have to drive everywhere. You are likely to work some distance from where you live and if you mix with anyone it is probably work colleagues and again, lack of transport means all the normal after work drinks, meals and making friends does not happen – everything is closed down after 6. The places with any sort of social life might be 25 miles away and if you’ve just driven home, you don’t want to drive back and people are unlikely to ask you even if you are willing to because they don’t think you’d want to. The modern estates that have been built are full of nooks and crannies and curves and are not conducive to leaning over the garden fence to chat with your neighbour. Where you are closer, any attempts to do so would be seen as odd.
So this is partly cultural, no doubt. Somerset is very uncosmopolitan and the people don’t know how to mix with folk from the other end of the village, let alone foreigners or people of colour. It wasn’t that long ago that the English National Party were almost voted in to South Somerset Council and I recollect having to brief students about terminology it was unacceptable to use on trips to London. Somerset is a poor area with low aspiration, low wages and high unemployment. It contains some of the poorest wards in the country as well as some of the most challenging and challenged schools. People with any education or aspiration tend to move away. When they come back it is in retirement, to set up their own businesses or with young families so people of my generation are probably the least well represented. The only other place I’ve been like that is Iowa.
The other factor is sadly related to class. The aspiration of many of the folk who live here and have lived here for some generations is to own a house like other people own and due to the relatively low house prices this is still possible, though becoming more difficult as everywhere else, and when you have found your castle you pull the drawbridge up. Being part of a community actually takes effort and interaction and the aspirational are wedded to their cars and their houses. They travel somewhere, travel home and shut the door. The numbers of classes and societies are decreasing year on year as funding shrinks and tend to be limited to daytime stuff for retired folk. The type of community being lauded everywhere at the moment is a very middle class, cosmopolitan entity that would have formed things like the Womens Voluntary Service and the WI in times gone past. Offering to do something for someone, or lend them some equipment is viewed oddly. Even groups which are normally associated with community like church are isolated. I have been in the church I currently attend for 2 ½ years and have been to someone’s house for a cup of tea once. To me, a Londoner from a middle class, cosmopolitan background, it’s normal to invite someone round for a cuppa and normal to just drop in to someone else.
So here I am, on a 12 week lockdown, a vulnerable person but not part of the extremely vulnerable group, completely isolated. I live on a cul de sac with a 96 year old on one side who has four generations of family and a 70-odd year old on the other side with 3. Am I struggling with isolation? Yes, though to be quite honest it is not that much different to my normal life here. But now I am not even going out to work or going to a café on my own so I get all my ‘community’ on line or on the phone. And I am scared. Scared of being one of the covid victims who die alone. Scared of the decline in my mental health. I have told my doctor I am on my own and text someone everyday just so they know I’m alive and I watch the news feeds of communities with an aching heart. It may not be reassuring and inspiring but this is the reality for me and many others.
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