The badlands of rural Surrey

The most exciting place on earth I have ever been to is the village where I live.

And I don’t think I’m boasting to say that I’ve been to a lot of exciting places: Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza strip, Egypt, Korea, Crossmaglen, the Somerset Levels at high tide… My favourite dateline is ‘By Melissa Kite in Helmand’. But I’m also proud of the years I spent in a Portakabin at Stormont covering the Good Friday peace talks.

I’m just saying, I’ve been posted all over the world so I’ve seen a few interesting places.

But I’m starting to think that the most interesting place I’ve ever seen in terms of studying human nature is the small Surrey enclave where I bought a cottage three years ago in search of a quiet life.

I guess that just about serves me right for trying to bow out of the rough and tumble. God has a funny way of saying, ‘Not so fast…’

I’ve witnessed the dawn seizure of 123 horses, and someone blowing up the cashpoint on the high street

I pitched up in sleepy, manicured commuter-beltsville hoping I would at least not have to deal with gang warfare and gun violence, having done my bit overseas, and also having completed a 15-year residential sentence living in the London Borough of Lambeth. Bring on a nice quiet cottage on a village green, I wrote at the time.

Most popular

Rod Liddle

Sack the judges

But in the past few years I’ve witnessed, among other things, the dramatic dawn seizure of 123 horses from a farm down the road, and someone blowing up the cashpoint on the high street.

As I write, I am recovering from an incident in the village shop in which a shouting match developed between a local lady who was tired and emotional, and another woman who refused to get to the back of the queue when the tired and emotional one told her to, which culminated in the over-refreshed lady’s husband telling the woman who wouldn’t move that he had a gun and was going to shoot her.