When you read about a place and then visit it, the reality is not always what you expect. However, with Jorwert, in the Friesland province of the Netherlands, and the subject of Geert Mak’s “An Island in Time: The Biography of a Village”, the reality was rather unsurprising. Having travelled across a lot of the Netherlands, the view at the entrance to the village is much like many others. The photo is taken from the village’s only bus stop, where the timetable showed 3 buses each way per day. The Baarderadeel Arms has survived, the School appeared to have 19 pupils based on the images on the windows and the Church was hosting a musical group.
The playing field was being maintained by a robotic lawn mower (above!), just one more indication that people’s labour was no longer at the heart of this community. This is not to say that there is no community, but the community is based around social and cultural factors and no longer inextricably connected to economic necessity.
For those who cherish notions of “rural idyll”, this might be a sad loss. But the reality for the people of Jorwert is that they have the opportunity to express a range of consumer choices, they can travel to the nearby city of Leeuwarden in 20 minutes and be in Amsterdam in just over 2 hours. The decline of traditional rural services reflects modern consumer preferences and coincides with a higher disposable incomes for the majority. The question for rural researchers and policy-makers is how to sustain villages like Jorwert as mixed communities that can provide an affordable, good quality of life to those with lower incomes, to both older and younger people and to those working in different types of employment.
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