In the village there's a small building which is locally called Room@the Park. Its owned by the parish church and has been recently refurbished, using much volunteer help. Its origins were as a reading room for the village, and it was erected in 1902. My voluntary help was used to strip paint off the hardwood board which was over an alcove in the little building. It had been painted over with cream emulsion at some point, but looks much better now, when cleaned back to its original hue. 1902 was the second year of Edward VII's reign, and the local carpenter who made the board pinned two wooden I.I. numerals to mark the occasion. The board is fairly basic, made with hand tools, including chisels, a saw and a hammer. It's perfectly in keeping with the building itself: simple and unpretentious. Sanding it down one week this summer, I became almost fond of it and the accompanying chisel marks used to create some texture around the lettering. It's childlike in its simplicity. It fits that period leading up to the first World War, when village people in 1902 would have felt that life would go on indefinitely in the same old way. What a cataclysm lay ahead of them.
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