“Herefordshire’s nice” said I, thinking back to a holiday in the Forest of Dean. Now time has passed, my wife got her job in Herefordshire and here we are. I have learnt some things along the way, among them that Herefordshire is indeed nice but that the Forest of Dean isn’t in it.
Our move was driven largely by the desire to leave the South East of England, forced out by the crowds and noise. Moves made on this basis often don’t work out well, for imagined idylls rarely live up to expectation. Hoping to move to Eden we find that we are still the same fallen creatures, just as fraught, grumpy and dissatisfied as ever.
Not this time. Passing swiftly over the affordability of house prices (pardon me for mentioning this, but I have just spent fifteen years living in the Home Counties, and it has an effect on one) the first thing to mention is the stars. Yes I know they are not technically in Herefordshire, and are in fact very much further away than the Forest of Dean, but you can see them. Lots of them. Even the Milky Way, which I haven’t seen for years. It’s really rather fabulous and I hope I never get used to it.
And the quiet. Another thing I did recently, for the first time in a long time, was listen to Gorecki’s 3rd symphony. If you don’t know it I recommend having a listen because it’s wonderful. But it’s also very quiet. Listening to it in silence is moving and life-affirming. Listening to it against a background of traffic and the thumping bass of other people’s stereos is exceedingly aggravating. One of the most sublime works of the 20th century becomes as vexing as Baby Shark on repeat.
And there were more culture shocks in store.
My first one was going to a cash dispenser and finding it would only communicate in Welsh, but I think that was just a blip. I digress.
A real culture shock was experienced by my wife (Esther, the newish Reserves Manager at Herefordshire Wildlife Trust). Where, she wondered, are all the locks? Can you really just leave gates unsecured? (Answer: in Bedfordshire no; in Herefordshire yes.) And where, she wondered, do HWT log incidents of anti-social behaviour? (Answer: what incidents?)
“Hell” Sartre observed “is other people”, but he lived in the famously unfriendly city of Paris, where too many people are stuffed into too small a space. Had he lived in the famously unfriendly city of London he would probably have believed the same thing. But in Herefordshire? We have found nothing but friendliness and a warm welcome.
We also find ourselves among people who understand the countryside. Our previous home was in a village which many would describe as rural, but for most people ‘countryside’ was just a place to walk the dog. Not here. Esther continues to be delighted by the breadth and depth of expertise among people we meet, particularly among Herefordshire Wildlife Trust’s band of volunteers, who bring real professionalism to the work they do.
For my part I am delighted to find that it is possible to buy high quality local timber (I make furniture for a living). Forestry seems to be an ordinary part of the life of this county. That should be the case everywhere but it isn’t. It’s not that there are no trees in south east England but that they are not understood. Some people fear them and what their roots will do to their house price (there I go again with my ‘house price’ chat – sorry); others have a simplistic, romantic view of them as both eternal and as a carbon-gobbling blessing in any habitat. Here woods are understood to be dynamic and productive, and I constantly meet people who know vastly more about them than I do: what a blessing.
My wife and I have only come across one thing which they do better in Bedfordshire - footpaths. Over here the paths are frequently overgrown, poorly signposted, occasionally blocked with barbed wire and frequently in poor condition – within a few hundred metres of where I sit there are two collapsed bridges. How am I supposed to get home from the pub? All this is, I suppose, the result of Herefordshire’s relatively sparse population. But it is a pity, and gets in the way of a proper enjoyment of this lovely county.
When we first moved here and were introducing ourselves to the people we met there was universal agreement that we would love it. One man said “I’ve been here for ten years and I wake up every morning and I’m glad to be in Herefordshire.” I think I know how he feels.