We wish you a merry Christmas

It’s been a busy old few weeks – nay months – in the Grigg household.

Alongside freelance work, there’s been a weekend away in London with the granddaughters for The Lion King, an overnight stay in Bournemouth to see The Human League with my flatmate from forty-three years ago, a school nativity play, the village carol service and putting on an archive film show to a packed audience in Bridport.

And that was just in the past week.

I’m not sure where the time goes but the year’s gone by so fast, I had a devil of a job keeping up with it.

The Christmas cards, bar a few, are nearly all delivered, presents bought and wrapped and a couple of days have been set aside over the weekend to prepare for Christmas next week and the big day that is Boxing Day when the hordes descend on our little house.

A New Year’s Eve playlist needs to be compiled and fine tuned for the party in the community pub, where, at just before midnight on 31 December, we all go out in the village square and sing Auld Lang Syne, and the traffic has to stop, whether it likes it or not.

A manuscript of mine has been shortlisted for The Eyelands Book Awards, which is very exciting and still is, even if I don’t win the competition. The unpublished novel – a cosy crime set on a Greek island (a kind of Bridget Jones-meets-Death In Paradise-meets-Mamma Mia!) had already been shortlisted in two other prestigious writing contests this year so I’m crossing my fingers, toes and eyes for this one.

I’ll be pursuing my search for a literary agent with renewed vigour in the new year, as well as working on the sequel, with a writing buddy from Australia who I ‘met’ on an online crime writing course run by Curtis Brown Creative.

Last year, we exhanged 5,000 words a week for critiquing, which was helpful in giving us the push we both needed to get our novels finished.

If you’re a budding writer and looking for impetus, I’d recommend the CBC courses wholeheartedly. Seven years ago, I signed up for one and I’m still in touch with group members, many of whom are now published writers. The support and encouragement we give each other is brilliant.

I’m not much of a one for new year’s resolutions but I’m endeavouring to get on with things, ticking off my copious to-do lists and living life to the full.

Blogging might take more of a back seat than usual, and how I use this website in the future is still up for debate, but you can find my column each week in The People’s Friend, the world’s longest-running magazine for women.

So Merry Christmas to you and yours and here’s to a peaceful, healthy and happy 2025.

The Geate A-Vallen To

With Covid or whatever it was having only just flown the nest (it took nearly a whole month), we’re now back in Dorset to lovely weather (I jest) and a warm welcome (I do not jest).

This morning, I walked out along the lane with Ruby and Edgar to a gate which reminded me of a poem by the Dorset dialect poet William Barnes (1801-1886).

The Geate A-Vallen To was apparently Barnes’ last dialect poem and it’s one I love because it was a favourite of older family members who, although from rural south Somerset, could do a pretty good rendition of the Dorset dialect.

There’s a YouTube link at the end of this blog to a chap reading the poem. His voice is far too posh but you get the gist. But I recommend trying it out yourself first by reading it aloud:

The Geate A-Vallen To

In the zunsheen of our zummers
Wi’ the hay time now a-come,
How busy wer we out a-vield
Wi’ vew a-left at hwome,
When waggons rumbled out ov yard
Red wheeled, wi’ body blue,
And back behind ‘em loudly slamm’d
The geate a’vallen to.

Drough daysheen ov how many years
The geate ha’ now a-swung
Behind the veet o’ vull-grown men
And vootsteps of the young.
Drough years o’ days it swung to us
Behind each little shoe,
As we tripped lightly on avore
The geate a-vallen to.

In evenen time o’ starry night
How mother zot at hwome,
And kept her bleazen vier bright
Till father should ha’ come,
An’ how she quicken’d up and smiled
An’ stirred her vier anew,
To hear the trampen ho’ses’ steps
An’ geate a-vallen to.

There’s moon-sheen now in nights o’ fall
When leaves be brown vrom green,
When, to the slammen o’ the geate,
Our Jenny’s ears be keen,
When the wold dog do wag his tail,
An’ Jean could tell to who,
As he do come in drough the geate,
The geate a-vallen to.

An’ oft do come a saddened hour
When there must goo away
One well-beloved to our heart’s core,
Vor long, perhaps vor aye:
An’ oh! it is a touchen thing
The loven heart must rue,
To hear behind his last farewell
The geate a-vallen to.

Church bell story chimes with petition organiser

Well, it seems neither the local newspapers nor the BBC is interested in the village bells debacle in my village.

It’s no longer newsworthy.

This is probably because the silencing of church clocks chiming is now commonplace all over the country. More of that later.

You’ll recall from my blog post of 18 March that the church clock stopped its hourly chiming, just two days after it was repaired.

A village resident complained about the hourly chiming – possibly having moved in when the clock wasn’t working – so the church stopped it completely.

The parochial church council has now reached a compromise solution to fit a silencer so that the clock chimes only between the hours of 6am and 9pm. This will be at a cost of around £800 rather than the original estimate of well over £2,000.

‘The feeling by many members of the PCC that, although the aim of the Church in the village was to “make Jesus known,” it was not felt necessary to remind everybody of his presence throughout the night,’ the PCC said in a statement.

So all’s well that ends well. Or not, as many local people are still unhappy that one complaint can stop the village clock chiming at all.

Without getting all Wicker Man and pitchforks at dawn – and there are far bigger problems and threats to democracy in the wider world – it can seem like rural life is under threat when some newcomers complain about things like the sound of church bells, animal smells, mud on the road and farmers working through the night.

The chiming of church bells is an ongoing problem. There was a similar issue recently in Witheridge, Devon, and also just down the road in the same county at Kenton in 2021.

All over the country, the church powers-that-be are worried about being slapped with noise abatement orders by their local councils. More and more clocks in towns and villages have stopped chiming .

I’ve just been contacted by a woman in Sandwich, Kent, where the night-time chiming of the bells was stopped in 2017 after one complaint by a neighbour.

June Summerhayes saw my blog and asked me to support her petition to the government calling for clock chimes to be exempt from noise abatement regulations.

I’ve signed it and told her I would help publicise her campaign. Understandably, she’s rather dismayed that, at the time of writing, only 85 people have signed so far.

You can add your signature to the petition here.

Mrs Summerhayes says: ‘Recognise the special place that clock chimes have in British life and history. Many churches have had to silence night time clock chimes because a single person, or a few people have complained. We believe this is unjust if the majority support the chimes.

‘We want noise abatement regulations to be amended so that they do not apply to clock chimes. This should also mean that any previously issued noise abatement orders in respect of clock chimes cease to have effect.’

At 10,000 signatures, the government will respond to this petition. At 100,000 signatures, the petition will be considered for debate in Parliament.

A bit of a ding dong

The church bells are still silent in Lush Places.

Meanwhile, I’m in France where the church bells in our village chime the hour twice, every hour (it’s about to strike three o’clock and they’ll go dong, dong, dong. And then a break and then dong, dong, dong again).

But the bells here do shut up at night. However, during the day, at noon and at seven o’clock, they chime until they’re fit to burst, calling in the workers from the fields for lunch and evening meal respectively.

Last week, a former colleague reminded of a notice I’ve seen in many French villages, drawing outsiders’ attention to the perils of rural life.

This is the country where village signs up and down the land have been turned on their heads. This latest farmers’ protest alludes to having their own lives turned upside down by contradictory instructions. See the BBC story here.

I hope a solution can be found to the silencing of our village bells back in Dorset.

And wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in addition to the automatic hourly chiming being restored, a new team of bellringers steps forward to pull the ropes on Sundays and high days and holidays?

The bells aren’t rung on a Sunday at the moment because there’s no tower captain nor regular team of ringers.

It would be lovely if the positive outcome of the silence of the bells story was that volunteers joined forces for bellringing to happen once again.

The sound of silence

Well, that didn’t last long, did it?

This time last week, I was waxing lyrical about the arrival of spring and the long-missed sound of the chiming of the church clock on the hour.

I even wrote about its repair for my not-yet-published editorial in the parish magazine, which has gone to press but isn’t out yet:

It is a joy to see it working again and chiming the hour, too. It’s been a part of village life for so long, it’s like welcoming back an old friend.

And then that ‘old friend’ promptly turned around and fled.

You see, after just two days, the church clock was stopped from chiming.

Apparently, someone new to the village complained that it was keeping them awake.

I’m not angry but I am saddened and upset. Village life is precious and the clock has been there for generations, an aural reminder of the passing of time. It takes one person to complain and then the bell is cancelled.

Now I know there are more important things in the world to worry about right now, and I don’t wish to go all Wicker Man, but the chiming on the hour, all day and all night, has been part and parcel of this village for years.

Which is why it was such a delight to hear it again.

Could there be a compromise? Maybe the clock could chime the hour only during the day. Apparently, though, that comes at quite a cost. I’ve heard £2,000-plus mentioned. And I’m not happy that the church would have to pay that just to satisfy one complainant. I’m not prepared to chip in, either.

I live near the church and I can honestly say that the hourly chiming has never kept me awake. You become accustomed to the sound. Your brain tunes out.

I do hope church leaders can resolve the problem swiftly.