Living in the countryside makes you a second-class citizen

If ever I went outside, this is what I'd see (if I were really tall)

For many, the countryside is a magical place. I've met a good many people in London who dream of moving to parts rural in order to live the simple life. It's not easy to disparage them as I've pretty much done the same thing myself. However, the country life they envisage is quite at odds with the reality of rural living.

Here in Northumberland, things are somewhat decentralised - life is local. There aren't any cities, just a smattering of towns and villages spread out over some beautiful scenery (so I'm told - I'm not big on all that myself). This leads to certain complications and compromises.

For pregnancy and fight-related injuries only. Alcohol essential to both

For instance, with such a dispersed population, where do you put things like hospitals? Although the town of Alnwick, where we live, has its own hospital, it's really only there for pregnancies and minor accidents. For anything more serious, one has to travel to Ashington which, although only 25 miles distant takes three quarters of an hour to drive. Sometimes even Ashington won't do and the journey is to Newcastle... in the next county and over an hour away. Of course, this is provided that you have a car and are in a fit state to drive. Public transport is sporadic and so is the ambulance service; with such a large area and a small population spread across it, it's easy to find the emergency services out of place after just one incident.

But things like that are just part of country living and you get used to it and plan accordingly. But it's just one example of a long list of things that we've long taken for granted in cities or more urban locales, but can be a major problem in the countryside.

There's a little village near here called Bellingham. It has a population of about a thousand if you take into account the surrounding farms and clusters of outlying houses. It has one Post Office. In common with every Post Office in the UK, it is linked to the Horizon computer system through which all payments are handled and the branch's accounts are processed. On December 17th, the broadband connection to the branch slowed and stopped. BT had been installing a new internet connection in the flat upstairs and something went wrong. It took a day for another engineer to come out to install another line in the flat, but it made no difference. And now, almost two weeks later, nothing has changed.

Nice Post Office lady with useless computer

Northumberland has an elderly population, many of whom rely on their state pension. No one has been able to collect their pension in Bellingham since the line went dead. Internet provision in Northumberland has never been good - most people would be grateful to have even a one megabit connection and in most places BT (or their resellers) are the only ISP. So when the Bellingham Post Office loses its meagre connection at Christmas there was no alternative. And BT haven't exactly been Johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to fixing it. Would this happen in London or Manchester? Nope. But it happens here. It affects so few people that it's hardly national news, but the disruption to the people of Bellingham is considerable. It's especially funny to see adverts for BT's wonderful fibre optic "super-fast" internet when they can't be arsed fixing a single shitty connection to a vital Post Office. The postmistress has been reduced to handing out her own money to desperate pensioners - country people are nice people.

http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/12/28/bellingham-post-office-without-broadband-for-a-week-61634-32504515/

Over in the even smaller village of Otterburn (population: about five hundred), there have been a series of power cuts. Now you might think of power cuts as being a minor irritation, but out here in the sticks it seems that we're not so much of a priority for the electricity companies so, as with internet lines, electrical repairs take a lot longer than one might be used to.

Otterburn, until recently, had three hotels. Hotels out here tend to be much more than just places for tourists and businessmen to rest up overnight. In many of the small villages round here, the hotel is also the pub and does the job of what community centres are ostensibly for. In August, the Otterburn Hall Hotel closed after a lengthy decline. Over Christmas, the Percy Arms also closed. This leaves just Otterburn Towers to serve the local community. Unfortunately it was the Percy Arms that was the pub and hub of Otterburn, the Towers being more of a country house hotel.

Otterburn's got loads of great blown up tanks and planes as the military use it as a live firing range

The cost of rail travel in the UK has risen at an astonishing rate since privatisation. Regrettably, governments of all flavours have been unable or unwilling to tackle the problem of rising fares and shrinking off-peak times, so holidaying within the British Isles has become oddly expensive. A friend of mine recently weighed up the cost of coming to Alnwick for a week and found it cost more than a similar visit to tropical climes. I can take a flight to Norway for just fifteen pounds, but the rail journey to Newcastle to get on the 'plane costs more than that. And that's after I've got to the railway - Alnwick doesn't have a station. A trip to London is over £150.

These profiteering rail fares have impacted on the tourist industry and is enough to send hotels like those in Otterburn over the cusp of the profit/loss interface (nice turn of phrase, huh?). Why come here for the rain and Roman Ruins when one can hop on a flight to Spain or Slovakia for sun and... some kind of drink beginning with 'S'?.. especially when it's likely to cost less. Smädný Mních. Damn it, too late. If one... sangria, that's another one. Does anyone drink sangria though? Ah, sod it, where was I? Power cuts. Yes.

Otterburn: lovely in the snow... unless you need to drive anywhere or like electricity

In December there were a series of power cuts in Otterburn which left half the village running off a diesel generator parked in the street outside the church. As you can imagine that's not a lot of power when it comes to running a hotel or two, so bookings had to be cancelled. Northern Electric took their sweet time fixing the problem, only for it to resurface just before Christmas. More bookings were cancelled. The hotel proprietors got on the phone to Northern Electric yet again and they restored power and took away the generator only to have it fail again immediately afterwards.  Northern Electric have said they are very sorry and that they are working as hard as they can to fix it, but that they're not going to bother doing any repairs until the New Year. That was enough to push the Percy Arms deep enough into the red that the doors were closed.

Twenty people lost their jobs. As you can imagine, in a village of 500, that's a big deal. When a factory closes in Birmingham and 1% of the city's workforce loses their jobs, that's national news, but when a much larger proportion of a village's workers lose their jobs, no one notices. It hardly encourages youngsters to stay and work in the area either.
http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/12/29/closure-of-the-percy-arms-hotel-in-otterburn-rocks-village-61634-32509687/

Otterburn Hall Hotel. Nice, eh? Too bad you can't go there any more

You can read reviews of Otterburn Hall Hotel here (the one that closed in August, but TripAdvisor will still try to book you in there - news of the countryside really doesn't travel). Take note of the third review entitled "Very nice hotel" - that reviewer was transferred there after a power cut at another hotel in April.
http://www.tripadvisor.com.my/ShowUserReviews-g504050-d1013929-r129056310-Otterburn_Hall_Hotel-Otterburn_Northumberland_England.html

Ha ha ha. That's Rory-Bremner-quality satire, right there

Otterburn has frequently been isolated from the outside world by flooding. In May, it was ironically cut off when a lorry carrying a wind turbine overturned on the road, blocking all access. How very funny... but the residents weren't laughing.
http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/05/29/a696-near-otterburn-closed-after-turbine-transporter-crash-61634-31065091/

Northumbrian law requires me to say how pretty it is round here, but we shoot at people with backpacks

The countryside is lovely and Northumberland in particular. Those rolling hills and sun-dappled fields that we all love so much are in abundance here. We just don't have enough electricity and internet to go around. And disruption to utilities is enough to really screw up our lives. I'll never complain about a delayed Tube train again (mostly because I don't live in London any more, but it was a nice closing sentence).