For it be a genuinely authentic English village it would need the following: a tetchy farmer with several illegal firearms hidden under his bed and who likes shouting "Get orf my land!", a bus service which turns up twice a week, a postmistress who knows everyone's business, a pair of fussy spinster vergers who tut every time they pass the pub and are viciously territorial about their rights to arrange the flowers in church, some sulky teenagers hanging round the back of the village hall, a smattering of aluminium industrial sheds put up by farmers with EU subsidies just to obscure everyone's nice view.
My mum lived in a thatched cottage and woke up one night to find every surface in her room crawling with huge black beetles that had come out of the thatch. So beware if you fancy a 'chocolate box cottage' one day...
