Saturday June 8th 2019

A very poor photograph to explain All Things Wick (My phone doesn't like shooting towards light, or anything these days, it does need replacing). 

I still think of myself as very much a northern boy. When in reality if I'm being honest, I've now lived in Somerset almost as long as I lived up north. And given it is 26 years, certainly I've lived a lot longer down south as an adult. Aside from a few glorious years on the Somerset Levels, since September 1998 I've lived in Wick St Lawrence. A Jekyll and Hyde parish. I live in the modern estate built on what were known as Trinity Fields. A continuum of the Weston super Mare sprawl.  The rest of the parish is a collection of farms and the hamlet clustered around the church, total population of around 150. It is an un-spoilt, quite desolate land, yet sliced in two by the traffic gridlocked M5 motorway. 

Today I went along to help with the All Things Wick weekend, whose poster had a fatal flaw, in that it  failed to say where this was happening - it all took place in the village hall not the church. I'll say no more about me heading to the empty church having passed the village hall on the way. My role was to join David on the door, taking monies for the day. Entrance (to the very good history of Wick exhibition) £2. Once inside, the fare on offer was, tea with biscuits £1, tea with cake £2.50, ploughman's lunch £5 and a raffle, £1 for a strip of 5 tickets. All in aid of the church funds. Despite having little religious feelings, I like the events the church put on and have a soft spot for the Parish. Today was no exception. I was made very welcome, and as David said, it is nice to have someone new helping keep these events going, as it's usually the same people helping every time". 

A couple sat next to us with a £1 tea and biscuits. She lived in the village until the age of 14 and simply described living here as being enveloped in a Darling Buds of May landscape. She wasn't that old, maybe 60, not long ago. Her uncle and aunt lived by the church in a tied agricultural cottage and she came to live with them, he's still in the village and that was where they were off to next.

I thought about this later as I read the many many news clippings of Wick St Lawrence before I was born, and from years when I lived up north. The article at the top of this page was from 1980, describing how the area is a rural backwater, yet only 20 minutes drive from Weston super Mare. Despite all the house building since then, it still feels isolated, close knit and I love it. The cling filmed ploughman's wasn't half good too, consumed while sitting outside looking over fields to the Mendip Hills, where Julie was on a 6 mile walk with the Mendip Society. Shhhh don't tell anyone, but I like Somerset.