Essenbe, I think Country Boys (and Gals!) must be roughly the same wherever 'Anglo-Saxons' and others of British Isles origin, wound up or started from. Myself, I am of mainly Celtic origin, my family has been moving East from Wales for the last 6 generations. Now I am about 8 miles from the North Sea coast and do not swim well, so that's the limit for me.
1Cit2lol I was born and brought up in a mining village which, when I was young, lay in the centre of Sherwood Forest. Check out the WIKI link here:
Blidworth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Growing up there was something else, we were indeed surrounded by farm and forest and used to play as kids in the woods. My brother and I used to trap rabbits, we used to wander the woods with our dogs for miles at night. There was a clearing in the forest, on a small hill, where we would lie and look up at the stars. No light pollution then, fantastic. Nowadays there are signs as you enter Nottinghamshire, "
You are entering Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood Country." It's garbage, most of the dense forest we knew is long gone, the remainder is a lot of Pine and Fir.
I left for several reasons, mainly because after the pit closed in 1989 and the place went downhill, I eventually became disabled after a work injury and needed somewhere not so hilly. Blidworth was situated on 3 hills, one of which has the Church and is the second highest in Nottinghamshire. I found this beautiful Lincolnshire village in 2003 after living in nearby Louth and it is everything we needed.
1cit I see you are in NSW. My mate Vic lives in Tamworth, comes over every year. He lived around the corner from me until he was 22, then moved to Oz with his fiancee and married. We were kids together from around 2 years until I joined the army at 19, then while my back was turned he emigrated!
Funny story for you both, about my village when I was a kid:
I was in the church yard with a mate (not Vic), after some chestnuts from a tree that is long gone, when two American tourists were looking at the headstones, many of which have been there for centuries and the names are hardly legible now. Hearing the accents, we spoke to them and found they were from Connecticut. They had read that Will Scarlett was buried there, supposedly one of Robin hood's Merrie men. I am ashamed to say that we directed them to a very ancient stone, with no idea who lay under it. It had probably been moved at least 5 or 6 times over the centuries, but they were happy for us to take their pictures in front of it and they took ours too. They gave us ten shillings each, which for kids in 1953 or 4 was a small fortune. I often wonder how long those photos sat on a Connecticut shelf, I would have loved to have heard the story of how they obtained them! If Will was buried there, it would have been in the 12th or 13th century, any stone would have gone.