Swynnerton, Easter 2020: A Village in Lockdown

A New, Unwelcome but Unavoidable Experience.

Staffordshire

Stafford Borough

The Easter bank holiday weekend has arrived and is, for once, accompanied by warm weather. Families should be going out, friends should be visited, sports events should be taking place, but nothing is happening, not here, not anywhere. We are in lockdown.

Such a situation is enough to make a travel blogger write about home, or at least the village I have called home for the last 27 years. It is, after all, facing an Easter which may be unique in its long history.

Swynnerton, in north Staffordshire, is a typical English village, typical in that it has many of the attributes villages share, and, equally typically, several more most do not. The earliest inhabitants to have made their mark are those buried in the bronze age round barrow on the edge of the village. They knew nothing of social distancing - or, indeed, Easter - but I would bet that among them were ancestors of people who would later adopt names like Cheadle and Fitzherbert.

Round Barrow, Swynnerton

Recorded history arrived three thousand years later (give or take a century or two) in 1086. Swynnerton, recorded as Sulvertone, had 15 households according to the Domesday book. The parish Church of St Mary's dates from this period – at least some of it does. Any building that has been in use for so long will have undergone countless alterations and several partial rebuilds as it serves the changing needs of the villagers. But this Easter St Mary’s is locked.

St Mary's Swynnerton

Turn ninety degrees from St Mary’s and you face the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady, a relative newcomer built in 1846. Both face the war memorial, which is appropriate as two world wars cut a swathe through the young men of Swynnerton without social or religious discrimination. The Church of Our Lady is locked, too.

The Church of Our Lady, Swynnerton 

Swynnerton has seen epidemics before and our fear of Covid-19 is entirely rational but should be kept in proportion. The ‘Spanish’ Flu of 1919/20 resulted in more deaths than any other pandemic in history, particularly killing the young and fit, including many who had survived the hell of the previous four years. The Black Death was relatively the biggest killer, reducing the population of Europe by about a half. It reached the English Midlands in 1351 – I doubt the church was closed that year, gathering together to pray was their only defence – and some died because of it. Swynnerton was lucky to survive, the country is dotted with villages that did not.

Easter may be a Christian festival, but according to Bede the name derives from Êastre, a pre-Christian Goddess of Spring. Whether he was right or wrong, Easter is undoubtedly a Christianisation of a much older Spring festival, and Spring carries on regardless. The flowers bloom….

Spring flowers, Swynnerton

…and the fields are white-flecked with new-laid lambs.

Spring lambs, Swynnerton

One of the pleasures of living in Swynnerton is that we can take our government approved daily walk in countryside, not along city streets. Some days we stroll past the sheep and take the lane towards Cotes…

Down the lane towards Cotes

… and watch those we are learning to call ‘essential workers’ going about their tasks.

Essential work

And then we turn through the narrow belt of woodland, which next month will be carpeted with bluebells…

Through the woodland, Swynnerton

…but where even now the leaves are beginning to unfurl.

Leaves starting to unfurl, Swynnerton

Our return via the cricket ground – every village should have a cricket ground - is made more challenging by first having to cross a field an essential worker has just ploughed.

Returning over a ploughed field

April should see the start of the cricket season, and the sign outside the ground says all are welcome but….

All welcome, but not just  now

…nobody is here either, and the square has seen some preparation, but it is not ready for action.

The cricket pavilion and vacant grass, Swynnerton

Agriculture is not the only activity that must go on, the bin men are still collecting our rubbish, though the fortnightly garden waste collections are not being made….

Ranks of bins ready for emptying, Swynnerton

…and Yvonne keeps the village shop and post office open – every village should have a shop and post office, though many now do not. Customers practice social distancing outside and enter one at a time.

Village shop and post office, Swynnerton

Supermarkets are open too. I have not left Swynnerton for three weeks but Lynne went to Tesco’s in Trent Vale last Thursday. Would-be shoppers queueing across the car park at more than the regulation 2m apart, were brought freshly sanitised shopping trollies by the staff and waited for the ‘one in, one out’ policy to bring them their turn.

Socially distanced queueing, Tesco's, Trent Vale

Every village should have a pub, but social change has brought hard times to the pub trade in recent years and The Fitzherbert Arms has had its ups and downs sometimes closing for months on end. A couple of years ago The Cheshire Cat Pub Company – who specialise in rescuing such pubs – redesigned and revived the Fitz. All pubs are now closed and many will never reopen, I hope the Cheshire Cat and the Fitz have the resources to ride out this storm.

The Fitzherbert Arms, Swynnerton

They are doing their best to help themselves. The Fitz has been distributing grocery boxes, the first of several similar enterprises, and although restaurants are closed, take-aways are allowed to trade, so four days a week, with a limited menu, the Fitz kitchens are open. Phone in your order, pay, agree your time slot, turn up and collect. A line of kegs with the magical 2m separation stand outside, but there was no queue when I went and there won’t be if people stick to their times.

Social distncing kegs outside the Fitz

And it is not just the pub that is finding ways to continue, our book group had its April meeting last week on Zoom. I am old enough to find the concept mildly mind-boggling, but it works.

We will survive, with luck largely unscathed, but we should spare a thought for those who have lost loved ones, those who are ill, and those worrying about sick relatives or friends. And we should spare a thought, too, for the ‘essential workers’ who carry on, their jobs have become more difficult and some of them more dangerous.

I know we have it easy. We have countryside to walk in and a garden, where we can have lunch on a fine day... 

Lunch in the garden

...and Lynne has prepared and part planted her vegetable patch…

Lynne and her vegetable patch

We don’t have jobs to worry about losing, and our income remains secure (we hope).

Sacrifices have been forced upon us, trips to North Wales and Scotland have been cancelled, our May trip to see friends in Torquay looks doubtful as does our June holiday in Ukraine, but these are irritations, not privations. In different circumstances we could have been a couple with young children in a two-bedroomed flat on the 17th floor of an urban tower block; we would have struggled to cope, so, while expressing solidarity for those who have to, I shall count our many blessings.

And as the Buddha said: Strive on diligently. Don’t give up. All things must pass.

Inside the Fitz in happer times