Lydford Parish and Community Magazine
March 2012
‘Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?’. Joni Mitchell’s lyrics have become an iconic lament for the loss of the beautiful, valued things in our environment, the displacement of meaningful infrastructure: ‘They paved paradise and put up a parking lot’. It was penned after the singer opened a hotel window in Hawaii and contrasted the distant mountain view with the more immediate ‘parking lot as far as the eye could see ... it broke my heart... this blight on paradise’.
‘You don't know what you've got till it's gone’ has been echoed in countless villages - I’ve heard it said here in Lydford - of the loss of farms with their families, of local shops, pubs and post offices: places of meeting and exchange. The lament sounds lame in retrospect - if only we had appreciated them more at the time, if only we’d fought harder to keep these places alive then we wouldn’t be without them now - but it nevertheless conveys a deep truth: of how much we deeply value and are influenced by such places.
The importance of these places to us is not in their physical presence alone - some farms or shop buildings might have looked quite ugly, for instance - but in the memories which they hold, deep evocations of human interaction and interchange. When Liverpool City Council in the 1970s voted to concrete in the cellars of The Cavern Club and build a car park on top, those protesting were not bewailing the loss of the brickwork: they were driven by a keen appreciation of a community developed through the networks of relationships around the city’s music scene, the energies of human exchange in which The Cavern was catalytic.
And so, at a deeper level, ‘You don't know what you've got till it's gone’ is really about people and our affect on each other, in the places where we ‘live and move and have our being’. I’ve been thinking about this in relation to the people who we have lost recently in our community, whose lives we have gathered to give thanks for at the crematorium or in the old church building, whose presence has enriched Lydford over the years.
In our villages the church is one of the few structures to survive, in which we can gather to cherish our memories and cradle our responses to the lives we recall with thanksgiving. And though the Church of England is currently in a vulnerable position (you can read an outline of our delicate financial position elsewhere in these pages this month; I’m keenly aware of the tensions involved in being just one-fifth of a vicar to a parish which has enjoyed generous clergy provision in the past), nevertheless here continues a place in which we are able to contemplate together that ‘You don't know what you've got till it's gone’, and a place where ‘what you’ve got’ can be re-energised, re-celebrated.
Mothering Sunday offers such a possibility. Some people approach this day with sadness because it brings to the surface memories of their deepest relationship, now passed and much missed, or in some cases because of failed relationships or a lack of mothering in their lives. But even these will appreciate the converse meaning of the occasion - the Mothering Sunday service is a time and place in which to gather in celebration of mothering, of those who have nurtured us, who continue to sustain us and who give us confidence for the future.
Mothering Sunday in church unites generations, and those we lament are present with those we currently hold dear, and the special ‘what we’ve got’ together is the source of our thanksgiving. This year Lydford’s newly-formed after-school club will feature strongly in the church occasion (11.00 on 18 March), reminding us that in this place our institutions do continue to provide places of meeting and exchange for our young people to develop another generation’s appreciation of family, friendship and community, and begin to reinvent that for themselves, with the help and encouragement of those who nurture them.
As Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi has helped energise countless environmental initiatives since it first made its impact back in 1970, as the backlash from the concreting-over of The Cavern carried the germs of Liverpool’s reinvention as a tourist city, so too in a modest-looking but equally valid way do our gatherings in church, school, pub, village hall and sports pavilion offer possibilities and potential for the future. We needn’t wait ‘till they’ve gone’ to appreciate ‘what we've got’ here; in fond memorial of those who have blessed Lydford with their presence in the past, and with a keen desire to assist our young people to enjoy a good future here, let’s celebrate these places now, let’s get involved in keeping them going and growing.
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