Village Stories

Seats K6 and 7 at the back of the raked seating for the Ewhurst Players production of Theft.

A masterful move indeed, an almost hidden eyrie from where I can watch the reptilian baby boomer masses

Taken together, they terrify me, press all my fight or flight buttons and set my heart racing. The sense of entitled, rooted, Daily Mail swallowing villagey rightness.

Will says that he has such love for these people.

I don’t.

What I have isn’t quite hate. It’s more like fear. Indifference. A deep, bone shattering weariness.

But then.

I look at the Steeles, the Foleys and Liz. A friendship forged in our lockdown coffee mornings.

Fearless, strong Julia greets me with open arms.

Felix chortles away to himself, tucked away in seat C1 by the wall and the door, seemingly contented in his own singular space.

Magic George beams with rightful pride in a directors job well done.

Even Jilly, oft purveyor of poison, giggling and mildly heckling with her friends from the front row.

Taken individually, each of these people in the audience are keepers of their own fascinating stories.

Well, stories anyway.

They are not just a scary homogenous mass of grey haired, stick in the mud, Tory voting merchants of doom. They are people, beloved of God. And as we approach All Saints in a couple of days, I have to remember that some of them are saints of Your church as well.

And yet, as soon as the curtain closes, I see that Will wants to stay and chat and I run away from all those village stories.

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