Monday, October 01, 2007

Want an English Husband?

The Guardian Unlimited: Men panic as lure of the city leaves villages with no women---

Britain's countryside is used to doom-laden stories about threats to the landscape, wildlife and farming, but now there is a new threat to village life: the women are moving out.

An unexpected phenomenon called "female extinction" is blighting the prospects of thousands of unmarried men, whose own careers are rooted in the fields where their mothers and grandmothers traditionally lent a hand.

More than 130,000 of them have responded to a heartfelt plea from the men of Alston in Cumbria, England's highest and now loneliest market town, who worked out two years ago that there were 10 of them to every local lass.

Worse, the bachelors in the Pennine outpost discovered - through glum research interviews on the windblown streets - that many of the remaining women were set on living and working in glitzier, more challenging places.
You can read the rest of the article and how they plan to bring women back to the villages here.

And if you plan to go, do let me know!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Somehow I can picture in 5 years time scores of Jane Austen-influenced women flooding the countryside looking for their husbands amongst the lonely men!

Thanks for the post :0)
V

Lady Jane said...

Lol! No doubt! Hopefully there are enough Mr. Darcys and Mr. Knightleys for the lot of them!

Thanks for the comment!