The neighbours you don't know.
By GILLIAN ORR [The Independent] – The quintessential English village is often regarded as a lost settlement, a rural idyll from a bygone era where fathers play cricket at the weekend, the locals prop up the bar of the lone pub, grandmothers oversee a bake sale and children run down to the local shop to buy sweets. Does it really exist anymore?
It might be an idealised vision, but when the London-based photographer Eamonn J McCabe visited the village of Firle in the South Downs, he found it to be alive and well. Asked by a friend to take some photographs of life in Firle that they could sell to raise money to do up the village hall, McCabe made the journey and was surprised with what he discovered.
“When I started taking photographs I thought to myself, ‘wow, this is so much more interesting than I thought it would be,’ recalls McCabe. “I quickly began to see it as a really special place and I totally fell in love with it.” Having lived in the capital since birth, village life was alien to McCabe. “I found the community down there to be really special, especially coming from London, where I don’t even know my neighbours.”
Continued at The Independent.
Volunteer clean-up crews blocked by council logic.
[The Telegraph] – About 20 residents with dustpans and brushes offered small businesses help cleaning up their destroyed stores.
But people waiting to clean up Clapham Junction have been told they cannot help because of health and safety issues.
The clean-up operation had been expected to begin at 1pm after police dealt with the crime scene.
But officers told the volunteers that the decision had been made for the clean-up to be done by the council.
Asked why, an officer said: “Health and safety mainly. There’s lots of broken glass around.”
Continued at The Telegraph | More Chronicle & Notices.
