VILLAGES RUN BY WOMEN

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12615, 27 November 1926, Page 11

VILLAGES RUN BY WOMEN

WHY THEY BUILT A WALL ROUND THE DUCKPOND

There are two villages in England in which mere man is ah “also ran.” In “Silly Haddenham,” which acquired the adjective in front of its name through a legend that the duck-pond had been thatched to keep the ducks warm (but the women deny this) woman rules and runs the show. Similarly, in the village of Lawford, Essex, women collect the rates, run the school, the post office, and the delivery of letters, and a woman even acts as clerk at the church. LAWFORD (Essex, England) is not exactly a bustling metropolis, writes a correspondent. Tbe woman church clerk bad a rush of weddings in August, when there was one on Bank Holiday and one on the Saturday before. As the average is throe weddings a year, the village had enough

wild excitement to last it till next August. The woman rate-collector, who has been at the job for the last twenty years, was the first woman to be appointed to such a post in the Tendving district of the county. Since some people are not over-prompt in [laying up, she has strenuous times every so-often, but she bears up manfully—or womnnfully. MUD WALLS Once upon a time, they had a schoolmaster in Lawford, but after forty years of it he felt it was time to retire. A woman promptly stepped in, and now*, with two girl assistants, she runs the school. In Haddenham, the feminist strong hold of Buckinghamshire, the women have got it into their heads that the men are all lazy, so they undertake all the local affairs themselves. For instance, the project of a flower show was mooted, and tbe women

determined that except for a bit of weeding, digging, and things of that sort, they would have it all to themselves. The only concession they allowed was the appointment of a male judge at the show, and they went ten miles out of the village to get him. Haddenham boasts a multitude of mud walls round its fields and gardens, and. since the mud is not impervious to weather, all these walls are thatched to prevent thfgn from crumbling. This gives the village a quaint appearance, and is also the root of the legend about thatching the duck pond. THE DUCK POND The village is famous for its ducks v and is very proud of them. Perhaps because they were afraid the ducks might stray to other villages, Haddenhamites nut a mud wail round the duck pond, and thatched it. Rival breeders, unable to equal the pure Haddenham strain, immediately spread the legend that the duck pond had been thatched to keep it warm. But the women of Haddenham pursue the even tenor of their ways, and the ducks flourish. The men. apparently, don't pursue anything. They rimply don’t count in Haddenham, Bucks, any more than in Lawford, Essex.