The Canberra Times, Friday 20 February 1931

OUTCAST COLONY

Discovery In Britain

HUNDRED YEARS BEHIND TIMES

Eighty persons who live within three and a half miles of Coleford, Gloucestershire are at times cut off entirely from the outside world. They are the inhabitants of Drybrook a hamlet between the spures of two hills in the Forest of Dean, and they live in conditions that recall the Middle Ages.

Drybrook has to be seen to be believed. It has no public lighting, nor drainage, no main water, and worst of all, no road. After dark and in bad weather it is cut off from civilisation. The only approach is by a tortuous, treacherous footpath through the woods. Projecting tree roots, deep pits and swamps are a danger to life and limb at night time. Tradesmen are often unable to deliver essential supplies; doctors have sometimes been unable to make the perilous journey to visit the sick; and the dead have literally to be hauled up the hillside for burial. Yet there is a colliery, a quarry, and a farmyard in the hamlet, and the inhabitants have to pay rates, although they cannot even induce the Gloucestershire County Council to provide them with a road.

Hardship of Isolation

Here are two incidents which illustrate the hardships of their life of isolation. A collier's hand was blown off by an explosion of gelignite. His fellow-workmen had to use an old door as a stretcher, and it was all they could do to carry him half a mile up the hillside to the nearest road. Another man's leg was fractured in an accident at the quarry. It took half a dozen men to carry him to the nearest point an ambulance could reach.

Drybrook is so inaccessible that many persons who live only a few miles away have never even heard of its existence.

The footpath that leads to it is just a beaten path through the trees. Sheep, pigs, goals, and fowls are everywhere in the woods, and a careful descent of the hillside brings one to the old grey stone houses of the villagers.

Reverent Funeral Impossible

Drybrook is about 100 years old, and 100 years behind the times. Nothing has ever been done there in the way of public works. The inhabitants are even worse off than their forebears. At one timo the hamlet was at least accessible. The land around it, however, has gradually been enclosed during the years, and now no vehicle can approach within half a mile. What this means to those who have their homes there was explained by Mr. Oliver Hoare, who has lived in Drybrook all his fifty years and is a member of the West Dean Parish Council. "We are little better than outcasts," he said. "Nothing is ever done for us, although we have made continual appeals to the county council." A reverent funeral is impossible in Drybrook. It is no easy task to carry a coffin up the slippery footpath to the road. Our children have to walk Inches deep in slush and mire to get to school, and in the wet weather the mothers have to carry their youngsters through the mud and water. No Telephonic Connection.

"Tradespeople will, deliver here only twice a week. There is no telephone to summon help in an emergency, and doctors do not like coming here to visit the sick. We cannot blame the doctors. It is not safe for a cat to reach Drybrook after dark, let alone a human being. Invalids who have to be sent to hospital have to be carried away in an armchair or on an improvised stretcher" Mr. Hoare is a collier, who owns a little cottage property in the hamlet. He showed me his demand note for £6/2/6 for rates for the half-year. "Why should we be expected to pay rates?" he asks. "We get nothing for our money. The county council have turned down our request for a road, although this would cost only £2500. "Wo do not ask for public lighting and sanitation, or any of the other conveniences of town life, but we do ask to be treated with common humanity and not be cut off from outside aid." Another colliery, now disused, and two more quarries would be opened here if only means of transport were provided. Another half-dozen men could be employed at the colliery where I work. Instead, we have men here who have been out of work for years, with little or, no prospect of ever regaining employment."

Cheers,

Don Cameron.

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Don Cameron