THORNCOMBE FIRST RESPONDERS
I suppose that everyone has a piece of poetry which first caught them and became 'theirs' at an early age. For some, it may have come in the form of a song or a hymn. For me, it was Gray's elegy.
Why? Who knows?
But I am quite clear about the bit that really struck home. It wasn't the famous description of the rural scene with "the lowing herd" winding "slowly o'er the lea". Instead, it was the idea that, buried in Gray's country churchyard, there were "village Hampdens" -- people of courage and conviction and energy, who might, like the Hampden of seventeenth century ship-money fame, have helped to bring down an errant King, if circumstances had conspired to call on their heroism.
In France, years later, I met heros of the resistance -- people who sprang from commonplace occupations to organise guerrilla warfare against an invading army at appalling risk to themselves, before returning after the war's end, invisibly, to 'ordinary life'. These were village Hampdens who, for a moment, had been snatched into history.
But what about the heros whom circumstance doesn't bring into the history-books even for a moment? People who, in Gray's phrase, "along the cool sequester'd vale of life", keep "the noiseless tenor of their way"?
Strangely enough, I met some of them last week, in my own village of Thorncombe.
We were celebrating the tenth birthday of the Thorncombe First Responders.
Who, you may ask, are the Thorncombe First Responders? Answer: invisible heros of our time who, entirely voluntarily and without the slightest reward (at least in this life) provide a para-medic service. The big thing is that their service gets to you in about five minutes, instead of the half hour or more that it takes for the ambulance to reach our far-away village.
I talked to one of my fellow-villagers at the birthday-party and asked innocently how she had got involved. Oh, she said, it was because they saved my life when I fell through a glass roof and would have died of lost blood by the time the ambulance arrived.
That tells you just about everything you need to know about how useful these guys are.
But I also know, from long personal experience, the huge amount of time and emotional energy that the organisers of this life-saving service have invested in it, the minor but persistent battles with bureaucracy which they have had to fight, and the unfailing good humour and determination with which they have undertaken the task.
Yes, it is only a small thing in a very large world. During the lifetime of the Thorncombe First Responders, there has been (thank goodness) no civil war to fight, no Nazi invasion to resist, no great, defining historical moment in which to participate. But these people, all the same, have shown something of the mettle that would have been needed to overcome great obstacles if we had encountered them.
So Gray was right. Buried in country churchyards all over England -- and in the burial-grounds of our cities, too -- there are the remains of individuals whose names are not known to us, but whose works and characters were well known and properly appreciated by those close around them. "Large was [their] bounty, and [their] souls sincere, [they] gained from Heav'n ('twas all [they] wish'd) a friend".
Why? Who knows?
But I am quite clear about the bit that really struck home. It wasn't the famous description of the rural scene with "the lowing herd" winding "slowly o'er the lea". Instead, it was the idea that, buried in Gray's country churchyard, there were "village Hampdens" -- people of courage and conviction and energy, who might, like the Hampden of seventeenth century ship-money fame, have helped to bring down an errant King, if circumstances had conspired to call on their heroism.
In France, years later, I met heros of the resistance -- people who sprang from commonplace occupations to organise guerrilla warfare against an invading army at appalling risk to themselves, before returning after the war's end, invisibly, to 'ordinary life'. These were village Hampdens who, for a moment, had been snatched into history.
But what about the heros whom circumstance doesn't bring into the history-books even for a moment? People who, in Gray's phrase, "along the cool sequester'd vale of life", keep "the noiseless tenor of their way"?
Strangely enough, I met some of them last week, in my own village of Thorncombe.
We were celebrating the tenth birthday of the Thorncombe First Responders.
Who, you may ask, are the Thorncombe First Responders? Answer: invisible heros of our time who, entirely voluntarily and without the slightest reward (at least in this life) provide a para-medic service. The big thing is that their service gets to you in about five minutes, instead of the half hour or more that it takes for the ambulance to reach our far-away village.
I talked to one of my fellow-villagers at the birthday-party and asked innocently how she had got involved. Oh, she said, it was because they saved my life when I fell through a glass roof and would have died of lost blood by the time the ambulance arrived.
That tells you just about everything you need to know about how useful these guys are.
But I also know, from long personal experience, the huge amount of time and emotional energy that the organisers of this life-saving service have invested in it, the minor but persistent battles with bureaucracy which they have had to fight, and the unfailing good humour and determination with which they have undertaken the task.
Yes, it is only a small thing in a very large world. During the lifetime of the Thorncombe First Responders, there has been (thank goodness) no civil war to fight, no Nazi invasion to resist, no great, defining historical moment in which to participate. But these people, all the same, have shown something of the mettle that would have been needed to overcome great obstacles if we had encountered them.
So Gray was right. Buried in country churchyards all over England -- and in the burial-grounds of our cities, too -- there are the remains of individuals whose names are not known to us, but whose works and characters were well known and properly appreciated by those close around them. "Large was [their] bounty, and [their] souls sincere, [they] gained from Heav'n ('twas all [they] wish'd) a friend".
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