MEN WON’T MARRY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20276, 10 April 1934, Page 14

MEN WON’T MARRY.

Only One Child of School Age in Village. BAULKING BACHELORS. Baulking is truly named. It is a tiny village hidden away out in the Wiltshire plains. And it is the most unromantic village in Britain. It has young men in plenty, but they do not marry. There have been only ten marriages in nine years, and the population has decreased from 160 in 1921 to 115 today. Two years ago the village school had to be closed down because two of its pupils reached leaving age and left and the third came from another village. Now the few children there go to other villages to school. The vil- - only communal anxiety at present is what is going to happen about little Phyllis Gerring, Baulking’s pet, who will soon be of school age. Young Samuel Harry Drew, the only .schoolchild living in her part of the village, and therefore the only prospective companion on her daily journeys, is at the anti-feminine age of eleven. Nobody knows why the Baulking bachelors are so backward. “ Perhaps they don’t want to marry,” was the innocuous suggestion of the vicar, the Rev G. H. C. Bartley, “ and perhaps the women don’t want to, either. Lots of women don’t these days.” Feminine tongues were less silken. “ What's the matter with the young men in this village is that they stay at home with their mothers instead of going courting,” remarked a young married woman who has recently come to the village. An older woman was gentler. “ Except for two, all the marriageable women in the village are farmers’ daughters,” she said. “ The farmers’ sons it would be suitable for them to marry are their cousins. All the other young men are farm labourers.” 44 There’s nothing wrong with the young men,” said Mrs Painter, who has four sons. “ I suppose they’ll marry if they want to. My eldest son married, but he went to London to be a policeman. The others are ©nly 19, 23 and 25, and that's too young to marry. But if one of my sons met a really nice girl that I liked, I should do everything to help them to get married.” A well set-up, Sax On-looking young man with laughing eyes came in to supper. This was the 25-year-old son. “ I reckon the young men of this village are happy enough without getting married,” he said tersely. “ Besides, who’s going to marry on 28s 6d a week, with rent and rates to be paid out of it ?”