Abandoned by the public authorities, hit by the rural exodus and the aging of its population, this village in the north of England, once prosperous thanks to textiles, seemed doomed to decline. It was counting without the iron will of its residents. From now on, the library, the grocery store, the social center and the pub are managed by the community. A model for all small municipalities in pain, wants to believe The Sunday Telegraph.
“We have always been more or less cut off from the world”, says Sara Swann, her cheeks rosy in the parking lot in front of the library and the Trawden store. Clinging to a mast, the Union Jack is soaked by the inevitable rain coming from the chain of the Pennines. Here the telephone network is uncertain and, until the end of the 1960s, to watch television you had to pay a weekly subscription to a local engineer. The latter had had the good idea to install a huge antenna in the recreation ground and pulled cables through the narrow and steep streets of the village.
If the outside world didn’t take much interest in Trawden, it was mutual. Sara Swann, 71, has lived in Trawden for forty-five years and although she raised her family there, she is still not considered a native. About ten kilometers northeast of Burnley, on the Lancashire-Yorkshire border, this outpost has always been content with its splendid isolation, and is proud of its claims to fame, as rare as they are modest: Charlotte Brontë lived nearby, and was inspired by the Wycoller Hall mansion in the nearby valley for Rochester and Jane’s home in Jane Eyre.
A prosperous past
Yet this unassuming and forgotten village finds itself famous today, and has become the standard-bearer of a movement that could well change rural life forever. The library, store, social center next door and Victorian pub across the road are now owned and run by the 1,919 people of Trawden, a model of co-operative local life, inspiration and of hope for the villages emptied by the rural exodus.
Steven Wilcock, 67, is behind this great initiative. He remembers when the village was a thriving community that made a living from textile manufacturing. “I used to bring trays of sandwiches from my dad’s grocery store to the workers at lunchtimehe says, over a café au lait in the library. The noise of the machines was deafening. I still hear it today. Before the war, Trawden had 70 local businesses, including four grocery stores, a haberdashery and three shoemakers.
There were 10 businesses left in operation when Sara Swann moved to Trawden in the mid-1970s, when the last garment shops were closing. Then, one by one, businesses went out of business. “It was really depressing.” When the three dilapidated workers’ houses opposite the pub were demolished to make way for a social center and library, the local authorities wanted to believe in Trawden.
The disappointed hope of renewal
But the sad flat-roofed 1970s prefabs quickly began to fall into disrepair, and in 2014 the authorities announced their intention to close the social center. In the nearby library, run by Lancashire County Council, buckets had been fitted for leaks, and it was now only open four hours a week. The only store still open, a small neighborhood grocery store, has closed and the Trawden Arms – the last of three pubs still standing – has been put up for sale, apparently intended, like the others, for residential conversion.
An aging population, disinterest from local authorities and regional underfunding: Trawden’s decline has followed a pattern that is repeated in rural areas of the country and the rest of the world. Feelings of helplessness and resignation are the most common reactions. People are abandoning the ghost town and taking the car to the big cities to shop and have fun. Unless you’re a Trawden local. “Ideas that do not materialize remain dreams”, reads on a carefully hand-painted sign behind the checkout counter of the cooperative store.
Uncompromising resourcefulness
“There has always been real village life hereexplains Sara Swann. Not like those sleepy Yorkshire spots over there”, she said, pointing to the vast, bleak hill overlooking the village. When businesses and factories closed, villagers moved on and found local jobs, showing the resourcefulness that has always been a hallmark of Trawden.
Wilcock is the embodiment of quiet village determination. His family has been here for three generations; he and his wife, Jane, live in one of the workers’ houses built for workers in the textile workshops. When he was a child, his parents always went to the social center – “dancing tea parties, whist parties, banquets” – and,
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Tim Moore
Source
Created in 1961, the title is the Sunday version of the major conservative daily The Daily Telegraph. It offers several supplements devoted to culture, travel, business life, employment, sport and
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