Welcome to Part Twenty of The Flying Inn, G K Chesterton's highly prescient novel of 1914 and the the latest entry to our series Tales for Our Time.
In tonight's episode, our heroes find themselves in what's known as a "model village", created by the founder of Mountain Milk for the benefit of his employees:
Peaceways was in its essential plan much like what we call a Garden City; a ring of buildings where the work people did their work, with a pretty ornamental town in the centre, where they lived in the open country outside. This was no doubt much healthier than the factory system in the great towns and may have partly accounted for the serene expression of Dr. Meadows and his friends, if any part of the credit can be spared from the splendours of Mountain Milk. The place lay far from the common highways of England, and its inhabitants were enabled to enjoy their quiet skies and level woods almost undisturbed, and fully absorb whatever may be valuable in the Meadows method and view; until one day a small and very dirty motor drove into the middle of their town. It stopped beside one of those triangular islets of grass that are common at forked roads, and two men in goggles, one tall and the other short, got out and stood on the central space of grass, as if they were buffoons about to do tricks. As, indeed, they were.
The "model village" was a late Victorian/Edwardian fashion in which paternalist business magnates built not just factories but entire self-contained communities for their workers to live in. A few examples:
*Port Sunlight, on Merseyside, was set up by the first Viscount Leverhulme, founder of Lever Brothers, now Unilever, owners of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. If you watch the TV drama Peaky Blinders, quite a lot of it is filmed at Port Sunlight. If you like the Beatles, Ringo made his debut as the band's drummer there.
*Bournville, near Birmingham, was built by the Cadbury family, of chocolate-bar fame. It's regarded as one of "the nicest places to live" in England.
*New Earswick (top right) is probably closest geographically to the fictional Peaceways, being located in North Yorkshire. It was the work of Joseph Rowntree, a rival of the Cadburys whose company created, among many others, Aero, Kit Kat and the absolute favourite toffees of Saddam Hussein, George Galloway and me: Quality Street.
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