The Village Hall
Story from Blushes 1 The village hall, a wooden building once central to the geography and the needs of the community eighty years before, is now a dilapidated relic left behind by the developments that have taken place around it. It stands alone on an ill-tended plot of land opposite the church and backing on to the George and Dragon, from which it is divided by an ivy-grown fence. At either end its doors are locked and through its dusty windows little of the interior is to be seen in the gathering dusk. On the ridge of the sharply sloped roof a pigeon struts perkily and dips its head to peck at something under a dislodged tile. From a single narrow window, high up under the angle of the peak which confronts the back of the pub, a chink of light shows briefly before it winks out. The pigeon loses interest in whatever is under the loose tile and flaps away to its roost, while high above an aeroplane traces its path across the deep