Saturday 26 June 2010

Gossip, Rumour & Hearsay


One of the cliches about small rural communities is that everyone knows everyone else's business. And like most cliches, this one is based in truth, as I have been finding out in the last few months.


One reason is that many people are related to each other - families that have been in the area for hundreds of years in many cases have intermarried into a tangled tapestry of threads that is often hard to un-knot. I was recently cautioned by a fellow in-comer, 'Be careful what you say to one person about another - you never know whose aunt or cousin they may be!'. This seems to be wise advice.


As an in-comer, I have found the level of interest in other people's lives both sweet and touching - these people care about each other - and also somewhat bizarre and unsettling. My elderly neighbour, for example, loves to ring me up when there is a funeral and tell me all about the deceased, their virtues, vices, peccadilloes, likes and dislikes, even if I have no idea who she's talking about. And then she will tell me who was at the funeral, what they said, what they wore, what they thought about the deceased... again, I only know a fraction of the people she is talking about and often feel like an unintentional eavesdropper. Discomfort arises when she tells me about the things people have done that she disapproves of. I am clearly supposed to condemn these poor strangers for their sins, even though I know only my neighbour's version of their shortcomings. Mostly I umm and ahhh noncommittally and hope she'll soon find another topic.


Most discomforting of all is the recent realisation that I too am the subject of neighbourhood gossip. For example, at the end of last summer - more than a year after T and I had split - I was invited to a wedding. My invitation included a 'plus one', so I asked IB (who I had been seeing for several months by then) to accompany me. The wedding was lovely, I knew about a quarter to a third of the people there and was introduced to many more. When we returned home, a friend who hadn't been at the wedding rang to say that before the wedding had even finished, a neighbour (who also hadn't been at the wedding) rang her to ask why I was at the wedding with a man who was Not My Husband. Someone else - presumably a wedding guest - had rung him to report on my presumed infidelity and brass neck in showing off my fancy man to all and sundry. What really amazed me was that anyone who actually knew me, knew that T and I had split, and that I had started seeing someone. Surely only people who know me would be interested in my private life? Obviously that isn't the case!


Subsequently, I have met people locally for the first time, and in beginning to converse with them have found that they already know I'm divorced, where I live, that my parents have recently moved into the area... in short, they know exactly who I am and quite a lot of detail about my private life. I find this all quite bewildering. How can I be so interesting that perfect strangers are exchanging details of my life with each other. Why would they even want to know?


Perhaps I'm strange in not being that curious about other people. I take an interest in the lives of people I know, but I can't get my head around the notion of nosing into the affairs of strangers... or perhaps that's it. Perhaps I'm no longer a stranger, perhaps I have taken my first step onto the (long) ladder of being accepted as part of the local community. That is a nicer way of framing it!


Either way, I have taken perverse delight in throwing petrol on the gossip inferno by allowing the son of another neighbour to park his car on my drive for the time being. It's a simple 'helping each other out' scenario - he needs somewhere to park his SORN*-ed vehicle, and it benefits me to have a car parked on the drive even when I'm not here so it looks like there's someone in. However, I am now a Divorced Woman (and we all know what they're like...), IB is still on the scene, and now another single man's car is parked outside my house... I can just imagine what they're saying down at the local Tafarn**


"Have you heard about that Moonroot at Halfway Up A Hill - what a hussy! Well I never - do you know, she..."




* SORN = Statutory Off Road Notice. In the UK, when a car is not licensed it is issued with a SORN, one condition of which is that it is not parked on the public highway.


** Tafarn - Tavern or pub.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who was it who said that great minds are interested in ideas, and small minds are interested in other people? Looks like a collection of the latter inhabit your lovely Welsh vale.

I inhabit a middle-sized city with access to wildish places for this very reason. That, and the wackos my small-town neighbors kept insisting I meet and be matched up with. They're here too, but now I can avoid them.

Runic Rhyme said...

Greet them all with a smile, be it a knowing smile or not - you decide, anywho -- don't succumb. You are unique, and they should be interested! If they turn you into something less, it is only due to their own insecurities.

Peace to you lovely Moonroot stranger-friend :]

raewytch said...

Ive also found it fun to fuel the gossips. Several years ago 2 male friends (just good friends)would accompany me to pagan gatherings (my now ex husband wasnt interested in them) If we were back late they stayed on the couch and spare room - my husband was also in the house!! When I found I was the subject of gossip - the extent that anonomous letters being put through the door informing mys husband of my extra marital conduct,

I purposely came home in time to be seen being escorted by a man on each arm into my house, and once even allowed one of them to walk with me to the school to pick up my children. With looks and whispers around me,a more brash neighbour approached me and said hello. I said hello and then said oh and this is David.....' As I walked away she was heard to say, 'well that didnt tell me much...'

We had such a laugh about it. And this was in a small town in Essex, not a rural village!

Griffin said...

Oh at last, rumours about you are flying around... now you can REALLY have fun!!! By the way I am impressed that you're now a fully qualified hussy... I've been trying for that title for years!

I hope you are now dressing in scarlet silk as well and wearing stockings and high-heeled boots. You need to look the part after all.

laoi gaul~williams said...

oh i know exactly what you mean!
village gossip!
although my family have lived here since i was 5 i moved away for about 9 years returning two years ago. i now live in a quiet little dead end road surrounded by people i have known, pretty much my whole life.
my neighbour opposite is one of those people and i hate to say it but she drives me mad! much like your neighbour she imparts at length her gossip and opinions and i 'umm' and 'ahh'~not rude enough to say her gossip has no meaning for me (but thinking it!) and of course i know swmapy and i are part of her gossip to others~i cannot work because of my m.e and now swampy cannot because of his severe AIH~i can see it like a cloud above her head 'now they look fine so why are they not working' it makes me sigh and feel uncomfortable

Chicken lover said...

Your post made me smile, I have lived in my Derbyshire town for all of my 47 years. My local shop is a hive of gossip and I am sorry to say but it intrigues me when I go in there to hear the latest goss! lol. I know full well that the minute I leave the shop I will be the next topic but hey ho that's folk for you.

Enjoy it and as Griffin says milk it while you can, he he...

Bethan said...

I thought this post was so funny! I too live in small rural village - but on the Isle of Wight. When I moved in the people at the Post Office knew exactly who I was, all of my significant history - including the jobs of my mother and late father! I was then asked by a neighbour if both my children were by the same father as I was known as the "unmarried mother with two children by different fathers" ... which my partner (and father of BOTH the terrible two)found amusing. He, on the other hand has caused outrage by daring to park on the main road in the village and has been referred to by all the elderly residents as "that funny looking man." ????
I'm sure one day we'll be accepted. Until then I shall continue to be the unmarried mother who cohabits with the funny looking man!