Under the Tump (27 page)

As he returns to his seat, he passes me a copy of the Hay Together Constitution. It’s a ten-page document, printed on A4 paper with a rainbow-coloured swish on the front page. I scan the ‘Objectives’, which are bulleted on page 1 and which note the aforementioned Community Plan. Also appearing on the list are the goals of promoting the town ‘as a centre of books’, encouraging pride in our community, and working with local government agencies, including the Town Council.

Preceding the bullet points is a single paragraph entitled ‘Aims’. It reads as follows:

The word ‘safeguard’ leaps out at me.

The supermarket fracas, which was unfolding just as we arrived in the area, is undoubtedly the most convulsive brouhaha to have hit the local area in recent years. Yet it is by no means the only one. Barely a month goes by without someone launching a campaign about something.

So recently there was a fight to keep the public toilets open. Before that there was the to-do about a phone mast above Hay Primary School. Then came the struggle against a proposed wind turbine on Clyro Hill. Next, the fight over a potential chicken broiler complex in Dorstone. The latest
skirmish is over the possible closure of Gwernyfed High School.

All, in some way or other, represent exercises in safeguarding. It may be homeowners wanting to protect their view, or ‘landscape character’ as planning-speak would have it. It could be parents worried about their children’s health or residents fretting over noise levels or a village concerned about traffic. Anything, basically. All it needs is for people to feel that something they care about passionately is under threat.

Looked at from outside, such community squabbles can seem terribly parochial. A strong element of self-interest undergirds much of what motivates people to get off the couch and complain, for sure. The classic ‘Not In My Backyard’ syndrome. As one anti-turbine advocate put it to me, ‘If I’m not going to look after my backyard, who is?’ She had a point.

Despite its pejorative contemporary associations, however, ‘parochialism’ as a concept has its merits. The term literally means ‘of the parish’. In its purest sense, it speaks of ‘the small and the particular and the specific’, to quote the writer Paul Kingsnorth, author of
Real England: The Battle Against the Bland
.

As global brands engulf the globe, his argument goes, more and more of us find ourselves living in the shadows of McDonald’s Golden Arches or a Best Western hotel. In such circumstances, the particularities of individual place become ever more important. When they disappear, part of us disappears with them. It is hard to persuade yourself that your community is distinctive and different when it looks so similar to everywhere else. The same is true for our own selves.

Viewed as such, the obverse to parochialism isn’t open-mindedness. It’s placelessness. The doctrine of the ‘global
citizen’, at liberty to globetrot through life, never putting down roots, always floating through. It sounds attractive. It’s probably quite fun. But really, deep down? Never having anywhere to call ‘home’. Never having anywhere specific to go back to or think back on. We belong to the world, such people say of themselves. This is true. Equally, they belong to nowhere. They are ships without a flag, adrift on the waves. Floating. Anchorless.

Kilvert could never have imagined an era in which such dislocation was possible. How much more prescient then his passion to record the singularities of parish life in the Marches. The villagers’ tradition of begging for milk from the farms so they could bake cakes for Michaelmas, for example. Or the fact that ground ivy is known alternatively as Robin-in-the-hedge in Radnorshire and Hay Maids in Herefordshire. Kilvert sensed that such quirks and customs could perish with the wind, as indeed so many have.

There’s more to it than this for Rodney, though. The lifelong agitator in him sees a point of political principle at stake. The democratic process, no less, is under threat. It all sounds rather alarmist, so I ask him for proof. Plan B put up a dozen or more candidates for the Town Council elections, he tells me, five of whom won seats. Yet within six months, all had acrimoniously resigned. Pushed out, one by one, Rodney would have me believe.

I look back down to the stated ‘Aims’ in Hay Together’s constitution. Rereading it more carefully, I’m struck by another phrase: ‘To create an influential community voice.’ How high does he rate his chances of achieving such an outcome? He strokes his goatee for a second or two. His thick spectacles have slipped down his nose and he pushes them
back up with his forefinger. People clearly wish to speak up, he says, his own voice more measured than ever. The issue is whether the ‘old guard’ are prepared to listen.

‘And are they?’ I ask.

He scrunches his shoulders and offers a broad grin. He couldn’t possibly comment. I should go along to a Town Council meeting, he suggests. ‘Judge for yourself.’

Much of what Hay Together stands for rings true with me. The importance of all voices being heard. The idea of safeguarding what makes the town unique. The hope of moving forward together. I struggle to see where the problem lies. Yet it may well be that my incomer blinkers are blinding me. For the sake of balance, I feel compelled to take Rodney up on his idea.

And so it is that, on a Monday evening a few weeks later, I find myself sitting in the upper room of Hay’s centrally located council building. The walls are covered with wood panelling and adorned with various plaques. ‘War Savings Campaign, 1944’ reads one. Another thanks the town’s citizens for their refuge and hospitality during World War II, signed ‘London’s children and teachers’. Among the other wall-hangings are a print of Hay Castle and an aerial photograph of the town.

Outside the room’s only window, the clock tower looms large. Nine councillors plus the clerk are seated round a boardroom table watching the minute hand. They are all ‘born and bred’. Two of the nine are women. The clerk is the only one in a suit. Five members of the public, all of them women of pensionable age, are sitting on a row of
chairs against the far wall. The evening is close and the unventilated room already stuffy.

The clock strikes seven and the meeting commences.

From an accountability perspective, the proceedings start well as chairman Robert Golesworthy, a tall imposing man with a thin face and large, basketball player’s hands, invites the councillors to declare any conflicts of interest. An elderly gentleman puts his hand up and lets it be known that he is a Friend of Hay Castle. Another reveals himself to be a member of the Royal British Legion.

The next half hour proves promising as well, with the floor given over to issues raised by the public. First up is the interim director of Two Towns, One World, a two-year government-funded project to support Timbuktu. The programme is wrapping up and the director is here to present a concluding report. When she finishes, a councillor asks her if she’s happy with the document, to which she responds that she ought to be, given that it was she who wrote it. There are no further questions.

Next up is a retired gentleman from Rail for Herefordshire, a local action group. He is concerned that the Sunday bus from Hay to the train station in Hereford is due to be axed. Weekend tourism will be affected, he fears. Again, the councillors listen attentively. A short discussion follows, although the Town Council resolves that it can do little to help. Public transport falls outside its remit.

A report from the local police then follows. In total, 138 calls were registered last month, a constable informs them. Most relate to speeding drivers, uncontrolled dogs and petty theft. A nineteen-year-old was detained for abusive behaviour while drunk. A thirty-nine-year-old was found with cannabis in Clyro. Otherwise, all quiet as usual.

With the constable’s departure, the Town Council moves on to the main business of the evening and very quickly its true colours begin to show. It is suggested, for instance, that the toilet subcommittee ‘needs a man’. No reason is given. Urinal experience, presumably. One of the male councillors thinks a role should be found for the younger of the two women. ‘That would scare the lot of them.’ The men all laugh. The woman in question does not.

Rodney’s allegations about democratic process gain more weight when the subject of new officers crops up. There are currently two vacancies. A call for replacements went into the community’s monthly magazine, although as yet with no response. An announcement in the
Brecon & Radnor
would gain wider reach, but it’s deemed ‘too expensive’. Instead, councillors are encouraged to sound out their contacts to see whom they might co-opt. ‘I’ve already frightened two off,’ says one of the longest-standing representatives. Another genuinely asks, ‘What’s Facebook?’

A little later, the agenda moves on to the renewal of the town’s grass-cutting contract. The tender was awarded to the lowest bidder, the chairman announces. ‘But how do you know they will do a good job?’ one of the female councillors asks. Someone else enquires about the identity of the other bidders. The chairman shuffles in his seat. He looks ruffled. It’s not appropriate to discuss the matter, he eventually says. Not with members of the public present. ‘We can always leave if that makes it easier,’ one of the elderly observers says. Astonishingly, all four of the women then pick up their things and troop out of the room.

I’m flabbergasted. My instinctive reaction is to get up and follow them. I resolve against doing so, partly out of truculence, but mostly on principle. We’re there to bear witness.
It’s ridiculous if onlookers absent themselves the moment controversy arises. So there I remain, fixed in my seat, looking down at my notes, pretending to be ignorant of what has just unfolded around me.

A palpable discomfort descends. For a moment, everyone fidgets awkwardly. All eyes eventually turn towards the chairman. He coughs. ‘So, to the next item,’ he says, his voice halting. And there the grass-cutting contract remains, unexplained. ‘Ah yes, the Community Plan.’ He audibly groans. I feel vindicated.

The National Park Authority, the body responsible for Brecon Beacons National Park, has asked whether the Town Council would be interested in developing a forward-looking strategy for the town. The brief is more or less identical to that of Hay Together. A logical step would therefore be to pass it on to Rodney’s group, which is already out canvassing residents for their opinions.

The consensus among the councillors is that the buck stops with them. This seems legitimate. They are the town’s elected representatives, after all. So a subcommittee is duly established and a date set for an initial meeting in three weeks’ time.

One of the replacements for the ousted Plan B councillors pipes up. He thinks it’s important to involve ‘other important people in town’. The suggestion earns him some disapproving stares. ‘That’s at a later date,’ a veteran councillor says. The new recruit persists nonetheless. People will expect to have input, he suggests, his tone apologetic. The key step is for the subcommittee to get going with it, he’s told.

He tries one last time. ‘So, at what stage do you think we need to identify – “partners” is perhaps the wrong word – “other participants”, let’s say?’ Later on, the general verdict
runs. The veteran councillor is more emphatic. ‘I don’t think we want to get too close to anyone else yet, thank you.’

A dozen or so other items remain on the agenda. Doggedly, the board of the Town Council works through them. Residents’ parking, dog-fouling, the playground, the Cheese Market. I watch the clock. There’s at least an hour more to go, I’m guessing. I am tempted to leave, although, having shown such determination not to do so earlier, I feel honour-bound to stay.

The final item on the agenda is ‘Reports from Representatives’. Each councillor is assigned to liaise with a community group. Two or three brief updates are offered. At the end, it’s noted that the Town Council currently has no designated point of contact for Hay Together. ‘Do we need one?’ The question comes with a sneer. No one is appointed.

It is past ten o’clock when the councillors finally leave. I trudge home. Rodney is right. The Town Council is hardly a beacon of representative democracy. At the same time, it is no North Korea. The public is given a hearing, anyone can observe (even if they volunteer to leave) and full minutes are published afterwards.

Nor, I sense, are the councillors venal power-grabbers. Some may well harbour private ambitions. Some certainly entertain illusory notions of aggrandisement. Yet the Town Council operates in a tiny, and shrinking, pond. Its budget is small and getting smaller. Footpath maintenance, signposting, anti-littering: these are the kinds of powers within its purview. Not multimillion-pound supermarket investments. Indeed, control of the public lavatories only came its way because of County Council cutbacks.

Yet the councillors’ antipathy towards Hay Together is
undeniable. It seems demonstrative of a wider dislike of opinionated incomers. At one stage in the meeting, mention was made of ‘Making Hay’, a proposed web-based database to promote all the events happening across the town. It’s the idea of an entrepreneur ‘from off’. A councillor mistook the initiative for ‘Hay Makers’, a co-operative of designers that rents an outlet in town. The confusion pushed the chairman over the edge. ‘Hay Together, Making Hay, Hay Makers!’ His head sunk into his hands. ‘These paracetamol aren’t working,’ he declared.

I wonder what lies behind such hostility. Rodney would waste no time in telling me. It’s because the town is run by a feudal-minded cabal that feels threatened by the prospect of participative democracy, he’d say.

I decide to ask the chairman for his views, and a few days later I pop into the country outfitters that he owns in town. The business has been in his family for five generations, their surname imprinted in the pavement outside in swirling, gold-coloured script. He is not there, so I leave my number. A few hours later, my phone rings. He’d be happy to meet, he says. I ask when would suit. ‘How about now?’ he suggests. Twenty minutes later, I’m climbing back up the stairs to the Town Council’s second-floor meeting room. I prise the door open. Without all the councillors, the room feels distinctly less cramped.