FOR a little while, the Lush Places village square has been deathly quiet.
The corner shop closed at the end of August and the pub called last orders on Thursday night. For the past fortnight, one of the roads through the village has been closed for resurfacing.
And for two weeks, a young man in a high-visibility jacket has been sitting at the side of the pavement, next to the ‘road closed’ sign. His sole job is to tell illiterate motorists that the road is closed.
For fourteen days he has been texting friends and playing games on his phone. Occasionally, someone will go out and give him a hot drink.
At the other end of the closed road is another man doing the same job although he has the luxury of a warm van to sit in.
It is the most boring (and pointless) job in the whole West Dorset world.
Today, there is a new young man in the square. Not for him sitting on the kerb and reading his text messages. He walks around and round in a circle, weaving around the ‘diversion’ sign like a pony at a gymkhana. He shuffles up and down, occasionally shrugging to drivers who can’t read and want directions.
And then he gazes up at the village green and discovers…
…the swings.
Suddenly, it’s not the most boring job in the West Dorset world, it’s the pleasantest thing a young man can do.
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The Red Bladder
03/11/2011 at 9:34 AM
It must come as a bit of a shock to the system to lose two vital centres of village life in such a short space of time. Still, by the sound of it, at least someone is actually doing a hand’s turn on the roadworks. In Bridport’s South Street nothing ever happens. How long does a hole in the road have to be there before it gets listed status? “Part of our heritage that hole is mate. Generations of Bridport people have had to leap over it or duck round it. You can’t fill that in. That would be sheer vandalism.”