Pansy Potter - Hallowed Be Thy Name! Part Two

Pansy Potter – Hallowed Be Thy Name! Part Two

“George Breadman!” exclaimed Pansy “But I hardly know the man, other than that he’s the biggest landowner in the village. Why should he…”

“Be opposed to you” I interrupted, “because he has the Parish Council in his pocket. That’s how he can cut down the hedgerows to gain a few more acres and there’s not a person on the Council who will dare to raise an objection. He sees you, Pansy, as a threat to that.”

“But that doesn’t explain Nellie’s behaviour” Pansy said. “Why should she listen to George Breadman?”

“Because George still has a tight hold on Nellie and her generation, after all, they can still remember a time when they had to call him master.”

“Yes, but nowadays, people don’t have to kowtow to men like Breadman.”

“They do if they want to benefit from the Charity,” I said.

“What Charity?” asked Pansy, looking puzzled.

“The Charity George controls,” I replied, “set up for the poor of the parish. George sees to it that nobody benefits except those people he regards as the ‘deserving poor’. That is how he can leave out Mrs Feldrake, whose husband was killed in an accident on George’s farm. Rumour has it that she keeps her children fed by entertaining long distance lorry drivers. On the strength of that rumour, George has managed to stop her from benefiting from the Trust. But, of course, the real reason he won’t include her as parish poor is because she took him to court to try and get compensation for the death of her husband.”

“I still don’t see what all this has got to do with me,” said Pansy.

“My guess is,” I said “that our George is telling the old folk that if you get elected you intend to try and put a stop to the Christmas payouts from the Charity Trust.”

“But I know nothing about the Charity,” exclaimed Pansy.

“Yes, but they don’t know that and it wouldn’t be difficult for George to insinuate such ideas into their heads, after all, they still see him as a benefactor. When you decided to stand for election you, unwittingly, threw a stone in George’s pond and now you’re beginning to see his power rippling out. I’ve lived here ten years now and I’ve yet to see a villager go against his wishes. Take the Village Fete, for example, every year the Community Council advertises the fact that George Breadman will open the Fete promptly at two o-clock but George makes a point of never turning up before two-thirty. He does this knowing full well that everyone will be kept hanging around because no-one dares take the decision to start without him.”

We sat there for some time chatting away until suddenly we heard Dave call from the shop.

“Pansy, can you come and give me a hand, I’ve got quite a queue in here?”

“Yes, okay, love, be right there” Pansy shouted back.

I reached for my handbag “Well, I must be going now, anyway,” I said and rose to leave.

“Oh, don’t go just yet” Pansy said “I don’t expect I shall be more than a minute or two.”

“No, really, I must be going” I said smiling inwardly to myself. Where customers were concerned Pansy was never just a minute as she didn’t go in for little snacks of conversation…with Pansy it had to be a three course meal! “But thanks for the coffee. You must come over to me, next time. Perhaps when you pick Rebekkah up from school,” and with that I said goodbye and left.

Needless to say the smear campaign worked. Pansy did not get elected onto the Parish Council and I think she would probably have remained almost a social outcast, at least, as far as the old folk were concerned if it had not been for the closure of the village school. The school had already been given a three year reprieve but now that time was up and we knew that with only twenty-five children attending the school, we had no choice but to accept the inevitable.

However, ever since Pansy’s arrival in the village she had, characteristically, put herself in the forefront of opposition to such a closure. She had been the first to point out that to get to the school in the next village, the children would have to cross the main Ipswich to Norwich road at a crossroads which already had the reputation for being an accident black spot. The education authority discounted this and, after much argument, they tore the heart from the village by finally closing the school.

On the first day the children were to start at their new school, most of the village, myself included, turned out to see the children safely off. I well remember with what trepidation we all set off down the hill towards the dreaded crossroads. The children were happy enough but the mothers walked in silence as each of them worried about how we were going to get all twenty-five children safely across such a dangerous road when it was at its busiest.

As we walked along we were all somewhat surprised to notice that a queue of traffic was building up on the other side of the road but there was no oncoming traffic at all. As we approached the crossroads we could see why the traffic was queuing, and why there was no oncoming traffic. While our attention had been directed towards shepherding our children safely down the narrow footpath, we had completely failed to notice the large placards which had been hammered into the grass, on the other side of the road, informing motorists that the road was blocked.

We could see the crossroads clearly now and both carriageways were, indeed, blocked by a tractor and trailer which were parked right across the highway.

“That’s Pansy down there,” shouted one of the mothers, so we all hurried down to see what she was up to.

“Come on, come on” shouted Pansy, agitated “I can’t hold this lot up forever. Get the kids across before the police get here. I’m going to cover the signs over with the posters advertising the Fete” she said. “Then I’ll uncover them again this afternoon, ready for when the children come out of school.”

We all laughed at her daring and with a triumphant whoop we marshalled the children safely across the road. This procedure continued for the next three days but the chaos it created soon came to the attention of the police and the local newspapers and led to Pansy being charged with obstructing the highway.

However, as a result of all the publicity Pansy’s actions received, people from the surrounding villages joined our protest and, before long, new speed restrictions were put up and the possibility of a pedestrian crossing was being looked into. The biggest benefit, however, was that the once proposed plan for a bypass to divert traffic away from the village was dusted down and a new enquiry into its viability was set up.

Pansy’s actions had shown the village that, although one may lose the battle, it’s still possible to win the war. The villagers seemed to take heart from this because the following year, the Community Council decided to hold the Village Fete in June, earlier than usual, so come Saturday the 25th June, due to the late arrival of George Breadman the Fete was opened promptly at 2’0’clock by none other than Pansy Potter.

End