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Real rural village life


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Hi all. I wonder if you can help? I'm researching a novel partly set in a village in rural France (not too far from Montbrison). I have visited said village so I have some idea, but am really struggling to find any material on the realities of rural village life either now or 20 odd years ago. Can you recommend anything please?. Thank you so much in advance. Kate
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  • 3 weeks later...
You said that you had visited the village and have some idea, but took me several years to get to the reality of the village I lived in.

The feuding, the enfants naturels, who were at school with their legitimate siblings, the near tortured and certainly abused boy who no one did anything about, even when he died. Endless stories beneath the easily said 'bonjours'.

You need to read the french authors as suggested and maybe actually live in that village, and hopefully a few people will like you enough to open up, because in my village, strangers get a general treatment, polite enough, but it was  purely and deliberately superficial.

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Very true, Idun.

It was only after a few years living in our small commune that we began to find out what was really going on. Our nearest neighbour was a born gossip and she gave us (well me) the lowdown on who was having an affair with who, who was related to who. Who was feuding with who etc.
You need to be able to understand and speak the language too.

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LOL albf, we encountered some pretty incredible things when we lived in a city too, really we did, just very different to what we encountered when we lived in Nullepartville en Patelinperdu.

If we ever move back, though, it would be to a town, big enough with proper services or a city. Let's see how Brexit will affect us... it could be on the cards, reluctantly on the cards, I must add.

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[quote user="Patf"]
Very true, Idun.

It was only after a few years living in our small commune that we began to find out what was really going on. Our nearest neighbour was a born gossip and she gave us (well me) the lowdown on who was having an affair with who, who was related to who. Who was feuding with who etc.
You need to be able to understand and speak the language too.

[/quote]

My best friend lived opposite the local prostitute and would have blokes knocking on her door, and she said that the looked rather happy when she answered, but they did not look so happy after she had disabused them of their error and told them what she thought of them in no uncertain terms. She can be  pretty frightening when angry.[blink] And angry she was when this happened.

Our village did not have a red light district, in my friend's quartier was an antiques shop, hairdressers, the GP and their Consultant spouse, a nurse, and a couple of teachers lived there too, as well as perfectly respectable people and the village putain.

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Funny how the neighbours love to gossip; there is a lady in the village who was apparently liberal with her favours for small sums of money, so I was told. And the cantonnier was known to spread his services far and wide, so another neighbour told me. That is just in my present village. In the first one there was much more!

Plenty of material for a Midsomer Murder à la Française.
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There’s quite a big property not far from us - in truth, it’s rather run-down and just a bit scruffy. The people there own quite a bit of land around and about, but don’t do much with it.

Our neighbour told us a few years ago that the family had been collaborators during WWII and accordingly were rather shunned in the Commune.

However, I read (not long after I’d been told that) that the family head at the time was involved in the local Resistance and that he was instrumental in trying to get an American airman back to his own lines. This would have been just after the Allied invasion in southern France. Completely contradictory tales !

The Resistance down here was, in truth, a bit low key. Sadly too, the airman and two Frenchmen were killed by ‘friendly fire’ from an American plane when trying to get back to safety.

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Our village was raided twice by the drug enforcement squad. Once full on armed police with dogs, second on the house next door to the Mayor, the occupant was in the garden frantically cutting down the "weed".

The scruffy car driver paying ISF, leaving a house to each of his 5 children, one with a tenant who had cleared out the cellar for a weed farm.

Our local lady of the night ran the cafe bar, her husband the local garage, he did not know her of her proclivity until a visit client mentioned it to him.

The mayor who did not want a small "central" in our village and insisted it went across the road to the neighbouring village - they got the 150,000€ a year subvention.

Most of these happened years ago, but the feelings and resentment is as real today. All told, 80 houses and 550 people.
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In our street, a nice lady I sometimes stop and chat to, and was so doing one day when another neighbour, male, who is usually chatty and even bises me now, walked past and ignored us ... there are only 6 houses on our bit of the street, so they must live almost opposite each other.  After he'd gone, she said, he is her brother-in-law (from memory, certainly relation by marriage), but he does not like her so never acknowledges her.  He bised me the next time he saw me when she was not there, so not me, thankfully.  Lots of stories like that in our village (c2000 souls), nor will this village support anything in the next village (basically you go out of one into the next, but change depts too) and vice versa!  You could not make it up .. French village life under the surface is not always very nice at all.

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+1 nomoss, it's the same the whole world over. In our tiny village in France, 89 people, they talk of people from the nearby department, 5 kilometres away as foreigners. It took one neighbour 7 years to talk to us now we are great friends and get along well, it was explained to me by our dear next-door neighbour soon after we bought the house that the French take time to get to know people, fortunately for us, our neighbour had travelled the world in his job and had spent 5 years in England so was used to Étrangers..
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I am relieved that the 'normality' of my french village is reflected in villages in other regions.

I say this, as when I found this board, it was about all the very very happy smiling french, who were always lovely and helpful and that was not what I was living. My village was a rare old mix including some really lovely people and friends who I love dearly. The good, bad and ugly always sums up my village.[:D]

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Many, many hears ago I spent a term in a small village on the North Wales coast called Llanfainfechan. It was just like a French village but, on Friday and Saturday nights more like the Wild West as the locals, fuelled by Welsh beer used to beat the crup out of each other. Mark you, the police when called gave as good as they got too, and seemed to enjoy it. They knew all the people involved and would wade into them using their first names.
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As well as all the gossip etc, once the french in rural France get to trust you, they're very loyal neighbours.

A few times we asked for their help and offered to pay, but they would never accept money. It was more like mutual favours. I sometimes wondered if it was because the french tax authorities etc kept a tight watch on anything done 'on the black'.
And they were inspected as to how their farming subsidies were claimed. With regular visits to the farm, and helicopter viewings.

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In this bit of France it is 'si tu a besoin de quelque chose n'hésitez pas....mais pas  aujourd'hui'

Devant ma maison y a un pin terrible

Dont la grosse branche pourrait bien tomber.

Pour mon pauvre toit, quelle belle cible.

Cette branche-là, je vais la couper...

Aujourd'hui peut-être, ou alors demain.

Ce sacré soleil me donne la flemme

Je la couperai... té : après-demain,

Et si je peux pas la couper moi-même,

Je demanderai à l'ami Tonin

Qui la coupera aussi bien lui-même.

Ce n'est pas qu'on soit fainéant par ici

Mais il fait si chaud dans notre Midi.

J'ai de beaux lapins, des lapins superbes,

Mais ils ont toujours envie de manger.

Il faut tout le temps leur couper de l'herbe

Et je devrais bien leur en ramasser...

Aujourd'hui peut-être, ou alors demain.

Ces sacrés lapins me donnent la flemme.

Je la couperai... té : après-demain,

Et si je peux pas la couper moi même,

Hé bé je lâcherai tous mes beaux lapins

Qui la couperont aussi bien eux-mêmes.

Ce n'est pas qu'on soit fainéant par ici

Mais la terre est basse dans notre Midi.

Le soir de mes noces avec Thérèse,

Quand on s'est trouvés tout déshabillés,

En sentant frémir son beau corps de braise,

Je me suis pensé : "je vais l'embrasser"...

Aujourd'hui peut-être, ou alors demain.

Moi les émotions, boudiou, ça me rend tout blême.

Je l'embrasserai... té : après demain,

Et si je peux pas l'embrasser moi-même...

Mais soudain ça m'a pris au petit matin.

On est déchaîné chez nous quand on aime

Et deux mois après... j'avais trois petits.

Nous sommes les rois dans notre Midi

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[quote user="Patf"]
As well as all the gossip etc, once the french in rural France get to trust you, they're very loyal neighbours.

A few times we asked for their help and offered to pay, but they would never accept money. It was more like mutual favours. I sometimes wondered if it was because the french tax authorities etc kept a tight watch on anything done 'on the black'.
And they were inspected as to how their farming subsidies were claimed. With regular visits to the farm, and helicopter viewings.

[/quote]

 We had some great friends and would all help one another, and then there were those we were 'friendly with' and if they heard us on about something, not particularly addressing them, would offer their help.

And yet, these same folk would then ask for help with something that was:-  far heavier to shift or would take longer, or a harder job, in fact they always got more than their pound of flesh back. In the end we ended up by being careful about whom we helped and who helped us.

So I have mixed feelings about getting help.

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Don't know if this counts as "acceptance"?[:P]

Over several months last year, we have had upgrading work to our petite rue.  We are on the edge of our village on a small road that only the locals use.  The works included installing new water pipes and meters, new electrical supply, provision for fibre internet, re-surfacing of the road, creation of trottoirs, new lamp posts (unlit previously) tree and shrub planting, etc. 

There is one final undertaking and that is to put up a wooden barrier to protect people and vehicles from falling into a steep bank.  This barrier is to be put up just beyond our gates.  Our house is next to an orchard belonging to a well established French family of the village.

I have just glanced at our village newsletter where mention was made of the barrier to be constructed next year.  Most amused to see that instead of giving the name of the road or the family who owns the orchard, it states that this will be built à coté chez Mint!

Accepted or not, it seems that everyone is expected to know our name![:-))]

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