The Idler

A Country Diary – 30

4 October 2005

IN MY VILLAGE there is a village hall. From the outside it is not a particularly prepossessing building; its roof is covered in moss, the grounds are overgrown, the steps weed-covered and the walls are of unappealing granite. But inside it retains much of its 1930s charm, with wood panelling, timbered roof open to the eaves and elegant hand lettering indicating the exits. It’s full of lovely old tressle tables and chairs plus there is a little stage in one corner. Local residents have managed to update it slightly, installing a new kitchen and updating the wiring. It is dedicated to a local vicar who was killed by an African king in 1896, after he attempted to convert the natives to Christianity.

I recently joined the village hall committee. The purpose of the committee to get the hall used more often and also to look into grants for refurbishment. A Village Hall Preservation Society, if you like. Apparently you can get grants from lottery funds for community regeneration. Anyway, at a meeting in the summer I suggested the idea of putting on a barn dance or ceilidh. Everyone agreed it was a good idea, as the local community rarely gets together, simply because there is nowhere to go. So I booked a band and asked my friend who has experience in such matters if he could help with applying for the necessary licences. I thought in particular it would be good to be able to sell beer and wine in order to raise money for the hall. This turns out to be quite straightforward. A registered licensee needs to be present at the event, but you also need a Public Entertainment Licence, because of the live music and dancing. Well, I sent off to the council for the forms for a Public Entertainment Licence. The amount of bureaucracy is mind-blowing. First you need to fill in the form and send it to the council. But the form has to be accompanied by a detailed plan of the hall and an Electrical Test Certificate. You also need to put an advert in the local paper within eight days of the council receiving your application. And you need to place a yellow copy of the application outside the building in question, in case any local fun-haters have some sort of objection. And the letter from the council explaining all the interminable hassle you will have to go through just so you can have eighty people dancing to a violin and tabor, ends with the following threat: “Any person providing, or allowing land or a premises to be used for the provision of Public Entertainment without a licence, may be liable to prosecution action, and if found guilty, liable to a fine not exceeding £20,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both.” In other words, we know this is a headache, but don’t even think of putting on your little party without getting a licence or we’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks, you horrible little hedonist, and anway, what’s wrong with staying sat home and watching TV?

It’s all absolutely dizzying and stomach-churningly awful, but it gets much worse. Having booked the bands for the dance, spoken to the man at the council, started to tell people about the event, put the yellow copy outside the hall, and called the local paper to ask about deadlines for adverts, I asked an electrician to inspect the hall for its electrical certificate, which visit cost £130. Three days later I got a quote from him saying it would cost £1,400 to get the hall up to the standard required. Emergency lighting needs to be installed, apparently. Well, I think that the hall has something like £700 in its account, and that the last beetle drive raised about £250. At this rate, it’s going to take us at least two years to save up the cash needed. We simply don’t have it. I thought of getting a sponsor in – The O2 Half Term Village Ceilidh – but I don’t think I’ve got the time to create a killer Powerpoint presentation on how ceilidhs will reinforce the 02 brand vales on a local level. Therefore I’m looking at having to cancel the whole thing, a simple little community dance destroyed by the health and safety fascists, the Puritan fun-destroyers, the nay-sayers, the anti-lifers, the paper shuffling bureaucrats spreading their deadly boredom around the country like a plague.

LAST NIGHT I DREAMT I took crack with Julie Burchill.

ARTHUR AND I cleaned the chimney, well, it’s not so much a chimney as a broad tube which comes out of the back of the wood burner. We straightened out a coat hanger and tied a brush to the end of it. This allowed Arthur to brush quite effectively to a height of a bout two feet. Then I got one of those modern tent pole things, the long bendy ones that fold up neatly into shoirt lengths. I think real chimney sweeps use something similar. You can put one section of the tent pole up the chimney, push it up, snap the next one into place and so on. It must have been about fiteen or twenty feet long in the end. No brushes but I rattled it around and dislodged some of the soot. The fire since has been working brilliantly. After three years I think I am finally getting the hang of it. Not only have we got a good wood store, but I’ve realised that if you shut the vents at the front the stove will pump out a nice heat and the logs will burn very slowly. Last night I shut the vents, and this morning opened them, and the fire lit itself again. Wonderful things.

I’VE DECIDED to cancel our ceilidh, defeated by central government regulations. They really do make it difficult to do anything fun. Instead, we’ll have a small party at home and ask for donations to the Village Hall Preservation Society. Maybe one day we’ll be able to raise the money needed for the blimmin emergency blimmin lighting.