Big City Problems in the British Countryside.

New Town, Similar Sights & Smells.

England.
Photography & text by David Cross.

A few months before Covid lockdown I found myself living in the Forest of Dean with my partner Laura, and her cat, Meme. It was idyllic. Deer roamed in the garden, a space they shared with a plethora of birds and other wildlife, some of which I had never seen before. The view across the Wye Valley was impressive, spoilt only by the occasional screeching of amateur kayakers on the brink of drowning. It was a far cry from the inner-city life I had known for most of my life. Lockdown itself was a breeze - excepting the constant worry for my family and friends, who all lived in confined towns and cities - the river went silent, the road connecting us to society grew a patch of grass down the centre, we “forgot” to trim the hedges and we sort of disappeared.

Photo at top:
One of characters who live in the town I recently moved too. 

Photo above:
The owners wait while the dogs squabble. Like many other transit points around the world, our local Bus Station is no stranger to drug dealing and other crimes.

Photo below:
Local start-up author shares a sad moment from his recent writing.

This didn’t last long though as one day our landlords appeared, and it was pretty obvious that they recognised the change we had made, here was a countryside hideaway paradise and they clearly wanted it back. Within weeks we were served notice of 3 months to leave, which was unlawful at the time due to the restrictions put in place by the government and we explained this as carefully as possible. It’s fair to say that this news didn’t go down well and the true nature of our “cheerful, artist,” landlords soon became all too apparent. It was a battle to find somewhere to live, renting was fast becoming a nightmare and overly expensive and so, as a result of Laura’s hard work and talent for managing multi-million-pound contracts as a job, we found ourselves a home in the form of a new build on a new housing estate, this time on the southern edge of the Forest of Dean.
For a while we overlooked not the Wye Valley but the River Severn. I say for a while, as not long after we moved in, our “River View” disappeared completely, replaced with a rather dull vista of about 500 perfectly matching and characterless rooftops, no doubt much like our own. Here I get to legitimately say, “I remember when all of this was farmland”. Nearly a decade ago I walked past this vast plot while working on a 12-month project and the changes over the last 7 years are at times, eye watering. The loss of natural habitat and character is depressing, the old shops and characters that frequented them are mostly missing, vistas have been replaced with structures and few of them are attractive to look at.

The life we led near the edge of the Wye was clearly an artificial paradise, we now exist on the edge of a small town that itself is considered to be on the edge of the Forest of Dean, the town misses out by approximately 200 metres, a signpost just up the road from town tells you so. We have neighbours, and I like that, except they refuse to talk to us. At first I was a little concerned but having kept an eye open, I realised that they don’t talk to each other either. “People”, I don’t know their names, scurry in and out of their houses, avoiding all contact with others, treating the shared community spaces as liminal ones at best. Sometimes it looks like a futuristic version of Winogrand’s New Mexico, inhabited by people not allowed to converse and wearing masks to avoid contamination. Wait a minute….

Photo above:
Local youth struggling with long-term unemployment.

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A trader at one of the many fayres that take place, here in rural England.

Our town is small with a population in the region of 10,000 + and here we find all of the problems of the UK’s larger cities but condensed into a dozen streets near us and various streets and unusual cul-de-sacs spread across the Forest region. We harbour a special kind of criminal too, the Ram Raider! We had such a crime here recently with the local police officer having to borrow someone’s bicycle to make chase. Luckily, the culprits decided to have an argument and fist fight while making their escape which enabled their arrest and detainment. The local petrol station isn’t immune from the occasional attempted smash and grab either, though the 20mm plate glass has so far deterred even the most dedicated burglar. It’s all very 1980’s in a way, some areas actually look like that era.

The mullet haircut is still a win here with the ladies and shell suits worn with bum bags are typical on the highstreets. And as of today, (as I write this) we have a new type of psychopath, one who throws bricks at passing motorists in the dead of night. I decided to make some enquiries into what was really changing and happening and as always, the best place to start is with the older generation, generally here in the Forest they are quite open and friendly, often only too happy to tell you some history or gossip. Everyone I spoke to had the same thing to say - the area has changed dramatically in a short period!
The reasons given are various but all centre around three things when looked at on a timeline; the abolishment of the Severn Crossing Toll, meaning you can drive from Bristol to South Wales and more notably Chepstow, for free. A rise in drug use and the widespread construction of new homes. Obviously the first and last are inextricably linked. The second is some sort of cultural issue and is possibly linked to the easy access to the M4 and the brighter lights of the Capital and Bristol. I am told unofficially that there are organised crime groups from within the Forest and “county lines” crime taking place. All standard stuff really, we are after all, in Britain where the signs and activities of wide-spread social breakdown are in clear evidence.

One gentleman in his eighties entertained me for an hour with his tales of nefarious behaviour at “Dopes Close” – a cul-de-sac opposite his home. He had even noticed the regular deliveries from Birmingham and London – the accents and fragrance were his clues. Interestingly he wasn’t particularly bothered beyond the noisy music and late nights, it seemed to me that it was just something for him to think about and keep track of. The days and weeks can be long for some folk. He represents a passing tradition of being at peace with certain things - each to their own within certain and unwritten limits - a moral code you might say. William Burroughs used the title “Johnson” to describe the type who minds his own business but never turns his back in times of trouble or hardship.
Here on our estate, there is one particular bully who is the polar opposite, one who publicly despises anyone who uses “dope” or plays loud music or simply doesn’t agree with him on every subject. This is the classic Modern British Male, and he lurks about like a fifth columnist in every rotten corner of the land, always ready to run off his mouth or punch you in the face. We call ours Keith, and he’s a mean-spirited hulk of a man, who voted to leave the E.U. and blames everything on liberal attitudes and “foreigners”. Sadly, Keith isn’t alone, a random trip anywhere here will likely see you have to deal with one of his types; they crash around the supermarkets, block any walkway they can find and regularly signify their dislike, particularly while driving. They were invariably the ones pushing to the front of all queues during Covid while not wearing masks but having had all the jabs. He and often She, represents us both at home and abroad. Often times they have flags; you can guess the colours and crisscross pattern no doubt.

There is a fairly wide split between the “have a lot” and those who are barely scraping by, too. This is synonymous within the UK but here in the Forest as in some publicised and notorious microcosms of Britain, the split is acute. As someone who has spent an adult lifetime exploring the back streets and subterranean world of alternatives, I can confirm that here there are streets that I consider dark. The camera is tucked away unless absolutely necessary and one adopts the position of either invisibility or player. All of the hard drug signifiers are present and you need to know what you’re looking at to know what you will have to deal with as it’s inevitable at some point. Cars that are out of place, a certain type of rubbish build up, a particular tag on a post, it starts to add up. It isn’t uncommon to see houses with boarded windows nestle next to homes with steel sheds, enclosing £5K mountain bikes. Some walk three miles to work while others drive new cars less than 1 mile and, on a Friday, they use the £40K camper van. It’s the tale of two cities played out in a beautiful forest setting but isn’t much different to anywhere else. The unease is felt in the lack of inter-social connectivity. Tribes know how to recognise each other and cut out the interlopers.

Again, as shared with the wider country there are obvious mental health and well-being issues and as the communities in the older areas are so small, the cases appear large in number, though I’m sure they aren’t. Certainly, since Covid I have witnessed more people who have obviously closed in on themselves, maybe they drink more or they seldom leave the house. This is the real impact of the closure of many Mental Health Hospitals in favour of a care in the community approach, for that to work you actually need a community that cares and a well-financed structure behind it to deliver professional care. It needs a group of professionals to tell us if this is working for the ill, but from the outside looking in I would say it is questionable. It is worth noting here that in the book, Psychiatric Illness and Criminality - Noman Ghiasi; Yusra Azhar; Jasbir Singh. © 2023, StatPearls Publishing LLC. It is stated that… “The popular belief is that people with mental illness are more prone to commit acts of violence and aggression…. (Yet) People with mental illness are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than the perpetrator”.

Photo above:
Run down and empty, the standard view for most of Europe. The entire continent needs a new direction and a new set of hopes and dreams. 

Here in the Forest mental illness is often passed off as “character” and there are plenty of these to choose from. They come from all walks of life, some are friendly and coherent and others not so much. In general, I have found the same grumpy Brit that you might find anywhere. The standard attitude of sufferance and nothing is good enough. Many of these voted to get their country back yet have done little with it now the tide has turned. They complain further about the various this and that which occupies their awake hours, the narrowness of thought and bizarre sense of national pride is I think a type of holistic medicine to them. In small pockets there are of course the standouts, genuine people who think for themselves and know the difference between the skinny and the real deal. They stand and chat, they understand the changes and how these are fed by the larger picture. Like most intelligent people they see that the government has lost control, mainstream media is owned, the climate is changing, and the effect will be devastating regardless of the cause - it already is, wildfires are destroying the large forests and floods are washing villages away in Europe.

As Bill Giles the former weatherman said, “the UK's 'drab' weather stops Brits from grasping the full extent of the climate change crisis”. I think a dulled culture, poor diet, apathy, greed, mistrust, pathetic leadership and a list of other modern ailments has stopped the average Brit from grasping anything useful and this is a bad time to be ignorant or in denial. Confucius was once asked how to deal with a wayward and corrupt society, his answer was simple, “had they not had such a good example set for them…”

Thanks for reading.