| I came across an old country guide the
other day. It listed all the tradesmen in each village in my part of the
country, and it was impressive to see the great variety of services which were
available on one's own doorstep in the late Victorian countryside. Nowadays a superficial traveler in rural England might conclude that the only village tradesmen still flourishing were either selling frozen food to the inhabitants or selling antiques to visitors. Nevertheless, this would really be a false impression. Admittedly there has been a contraction of village commerce, but its vigor is still remarkable. Our local grocer's shop, for example, is actually expanding in spite of the competition from supermarkets in the nearest town. Women sensibly prefer to go there and exchange the local news while doing their shopping, instead of queueing up anonymously at a supermarket. And the proprietor knows well that personal service has a substantial cash value. His Prices may be a bit higher than those in the town, but he will deliver anything at any time. His assistants think nothing of bicycling down the village street in their lunch hour to-take a piece of cheese to an old-age pensioner who sent her order by word of mouth with a friend who happened to be passing. The more affluent customers telephone their shopping lists and the goods are on their doorsteps within an hour. They have only to hint at a fancy for some commodity outside the usual stock and the grocer, a red-faced figure, instantly obtains it for them. The village gains from this sort of enterprise, of course. But I also find it satisfactory because a village shop offers one of the few ways in which a modest individualist can still get along in the world without attaching himself to the big battalions of industry or commerce. Most of the village shopkeepers I know, at any rate, are decidedly individualist in their ways. For example, our shoemaker is a formidable figure: a thick-set, irritable man whom children treat with marked respect, knowing that an ill-judged word can provoke an angry eruption at any time. He stares with contempt at the pairs of cheap, mass-produced shoes taken to him for repair: has it come to this, he seems to be saying, that he, a craftsman, should have to waste his skills upon such trash? But we all know he will in fact do excellent work upon them. And he makes beautiful shoes for those who can afford such luxury. |