Community Spirit

Recently the main road through our, and neighbouring, villages was shut for a Sunday as two huge cider vats were brought through on their way to a local cider makers. The vats had come from europe by boat to the closest docks, and then had to make the rest of their arduous journey by road, as being 35m long and 8m high they were too big to go under some of the motorway bridges that would have crossed their route.

It must have been a mammoth task organising their transportation, as well as a mammoth expense, as the accompanying party included a police escort, contractors from BT, e-on and the councils tree fellers, as many of the trees overhanging the rural roads were much too low for the vats to go under.


Being completely stranded in the village, many of the villagers as well as those living in neighbouring villages decided to come out and have a look at the huge loads. The load entered the village at 8:00am in the morning and the word soon got out so that the main road resembled a pavement with people turning up to have a look at what was going on. By 10am the load had managed to move about 500m, however by now no-one was going to move, and the road became more like a street party.

Friends and neighbours who hadn't seen each other for ages, were catching up on news and gossip. It was quite sad to think that some of these people lived within a mile of each other, but due to such busy lives hadn't seen each other to speak to for in some cases years.

It really made me think that we should take time out to keep in touch with friends and neighbours, it was so nice to catch up with everyone, and sad to think that it took the road to be closed before everyone made the effort.

When the vats finally went through, some 5 hours after they started everyone moved away, promising to keep in touch, or catch up for a drink........but realistically how many will?