Until fairly recently, every Devon village had a large, square police house, inhabited by a large, square policeman. There was also a vicarage containing a vicar, a primary school, a village store, a post office, a chapel and at least one pub. Our village also had its own blacksmith's shop and Women's Institute-both thriving until the second world war, when they were blown up by the US army, which had occupied the village prior to D-Day. (The Americans also trained heavy artillery on our parish church-an ugly, mid-Victorian edifice-but regrettably the damage was only superficial.)
Most of these old village institutions have gone forever. But "out with the old and in with the new" is what I say, and there are two new rural ubiquities which now, it seems to me, characterise British village life at the end of the millennium. One of these is the dazzlingly-lit BP petrol station and convenience store-a God-send for out-of-hours cigarettes, porn mags and smoky bacon-flavoured Hula-Hoops. Our BP station is now the cultural centre of the district-it's quite trendy to be seen there-though many of us have yet to become accustomed to the startling green and yellow neon lights which blare out across an adjacent turnip field at night.
The other recent cultural phenomenon is the rise of the rural massage parlour. As recently as a year ago, if I felt like a "personal" massage, I'd have to drive all the way to Plymouth, about an hour away; a long way to travel for a J Arthur Rank, I admit. But today I can look in the back of the local Free-Ads paper and scan advertisements for massage parlours situated in nearby hamlets and villages. There is not (alas!) one in ours yet, but it can only be a question of time. If the recession in the local dairy farming and crab fishing industries gets any worse, and holidaymakers are deterred by another wet August, we'll all be on the game before long.
The weekly, southwest edition of Free-Ads is a remarkable publication. It is bright yellow, and printed on unusually porous paper. Old copies come in handy for cleaning windows. As well as being an emporium of second-hand items, many of them poignantly mis-spelled, it is also a noticeboard for personal messages, lonely hearts ads, new-age health fads, forthcoming events, council house exchanges, and flimsily disguised ads for prostitution of all kinds. It is the impoverished peninsula's equivalent of the internet. If ever the indigenous inhabitants were to rise up and commit genocide against the taller, more affluent incomers who have destroyed their culture without even noticing that there was one, the signal to begin would be given in the personal columns of the southwest Free-Ads.
Last week I called a lady whose advert offered "pampering" in "quiet, secluded surroundings" by a "busty, mature masseuse." I recognised the area code as that of a clutch of small villages situated on the edge of Dartmoor.
Was I calling for the first time, she asked. I was, I said; and she gave me a list of the things she was prepared to do, and for how much. She was cheerful and businesslike and called me "dear." The possibilities ranged from massage with hand relief (clothes on) to massage with "full intercourse" (clothes off) with every permutation in between, except, as far as I could tell, me massaging her. The massage and hand relief option was so cheap that I assumed it was a loss-leader.
It was late in the day, so I asked her what time she usually knocked off. "Oh, I don't like to be too late because I've got to be up early to milk the goats," she said. I wasn't sure whether this added to or detracted from my burgeoning fantasy, but I told her I'd be there as soon as possible for the half-hour massage with hand relief (clothes off). Her directions of how to get there filled the back of a Christmas card, and included a right turn at an old Celtic stone cross.
The place was an old farm at the end of a muddy track. I had to make a dash from the car to the front door to avoid a trio of hissing geese. She opened the door, shouted at the geese, then bared her teeth welcomingly at me. She was much younger than I had imagined. "Silly buggers," she said, and led me into the house. Passing the kitchen I saw an elderly man sitting at the table with his cap on, making a roll-up. He didn't look up as we passed.
She led me into a very warm room with a couch at one end and a bed at the other. A cat was asleep on the bed.
"Talcum powder or warm oil, love?" she said, taking off her shirt.
"Warm oil," I said. "Loads of it."
"How do you want the massage-hard, medium or soft?" she said.
"Take no prisoners," I said. "Hard as you like."
"Shall I put some music on?"
"Got any Gerry Rafferty?" I said.
She gave me quite a pounding. Then came the extras. Noting that Private Parts was reluctant to join in, she said, "You're allowed to touch if you like, you know." So I put my hands where her more rugged, goat-milking ones were and tried to coax some life into him.
"I mean touch me, not you, you idiot," she laughed.
Putting my foot down on the way home, I was back just in time for EastEnders.
