I feel for the man who silenced his local church bells – a good night’s sleep should take priority
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Town and country have united. The bells of a Devon village have been silenced as a hush descends on the bars and clubs of Soho. First it seems that Amy Lamé, London’s night-time tsar, understandably exhausted from her duties, has had an early night. Having globetrotted around the world carrying out essential field work, jet lag has added to the weariness that understandably comes from supercharging, as she describes it, the capital’s late-night economy for a salary of £116,695 (courtesy of Mayor Khan). And it seems the district of Soho is paying the price.
A report this week says that you’ll struggle to get a drink beyond 11pm. Silence, it seems, is golden. The residents of Soho must be scratching their heads having grown used to years of hooting drinkers and clubbers hoofing it from one gaff to another and then spilling out at dawn and wandering the streets, then howling with agony at the lack of transport options.
Now the Soho slumberers share something in common with a man who this week officially became The Most Unpopular Man in Witheridge. As yet unnamed (so, as I write, not yet quite as pitiable as the man who, a few days ago, became one of those rare beasts to leave Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with zero pounds), he’s the chap who has managed to silence the ringing at St John the Baptist where those Devon church bells have chimed without ceasing since 1754.
Like you, my immediate response was “pathetic wretch. Drag him from his house, pop him in the stocks, then strap him to those bells and ring them ‘til he says his name is Quasimodo.”
But then I investigated further and my fury turned to sympathy. When this poor sulk, an abattoir worker, moved to the village four years ago and took a flat 30 metres from the church, the bells’ chiming mechanism was at the menders. So, after a long day of sawing up bones and stripping flesh from carcasses, he could repair to Witheridge, a village with a perfect mix of pubs, shops, restaurant, cafes and an acclaimed butcher’s, and grab a good night’s sleep, ready once more to sharpen his knife for a day at the slaughterhouse.
But then, post-pandemic, the chimes were restored and the poor sod was faced with a tinkling cascade of chimes every 15 minutes and big bongs on the hour.
Needless to say, he was frazzled and when he did what people in villages do when they have a problem, phoned the vicar, he was told: “You’ll get used to it.” Well, he didn’t and couldn’t. So, having had his initial offer of paying £3000 to have the bells modified so they only chimed during the day refused, he sought help from the parish council. They then imposed a noise abatement order and spent £3000 altering the system so they did indeed only chime during the day.
Now the man is slicing flesh with renewed vigour, but claims he himself has been subjected to violent threats because of his whingeing and subsequent action.
And I’m with him, and the poor silly sods in Soho, because lack of sleep, through no fault of one’s own, is pure agony. I want a full eight-hour undisturbed stretch, and one minor disturbance – the yelp of a dreaming hound, the cry of a nipper, the toot of an owl – and I’m awake and seething and searching desperately for the land of nod; and the harder one tries, the more elusive it becomes.
So if you’re like me and my abattoir chum, imagine the horror of those incessant chimes and bongs.
I watch with wonder those who can climb on board a plane, pop on an eye mask and sleep until the final approach.
And who are these folk of Witheridge that can not just cope with it but (presuming the village isn’t some sort of weird nocturnal cult) subconsciously relish the noise and are so used to it they now can’t sleep without it – and thus are suffering as the abattoir man once was? “You’ll get used to it,” the vicar can tell them.
Heaven is a place of blackout blinds and silence. And I’ll tell anyone moaning that you can’t get a night-time drink in Soho that it’s much more fun getting squiffy in the day-time.
