Yorkshire Post Letters: The fight to save Dales village school from Church seizure shows the threads keeping rural life alive

Dear Sir,

Your article about the future of Rathmell Old School is so much more than just another village property row. It confirms all that is vital in threatened rural communities, and how resilient they remain when sharing a core purpose.

Watching hundreds of villagers enjoying a fundraising barn gig next door to our endangered village hub showed the gritty threads keeping precious rural life alive. Their aim? Saving the village ‘soul’.

In sharp contrast, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s current purpose is to raise £4.5million for a 500-year-old Tudor tapestry. For less than 0.1 per cent of that he could have picked up two stunning tapestries celebrating the Coronation and Jubilee of the current and former heads of the Church of England, plus newly hung bespoke curtains proudly adorning the walls of our threatened Old School site. All made by locals running small enterprises and craft classes here in our community hub.

A blue chip Leeds law firm - instructed by a C of E finance department - is lining up High Court action to seize the hub which the village will fight with whatever funds we can muster. Last weekend’s gig brought in £2,000, more will come no doubt when our oldest resident celebrates his 100th birthday in the Old School in the coming days.

More seriously, the question facing the Church is surely one of getting close to our real world now? It’s a reputational disaster costing many times more than the development value of one small site. More importantly, In North Yorkshire’s rural villages it’s called not having a clue about real people and what really matters to them in their day-to-day lives.

Twice now Church spokespeople have accused our village champions, the trio of trustees who have saved our hub, of ‘antagonism’ towards them. Can three years’ uninterrupted silence followed by a sudden High Court summons for people trying to help their neighbours really be antagonistic?

But just to be on the safe side - as legal philistines limber up - we’re keeping slings, and grit, handy. In Rathmell we’re still familiar with what others seem to have forgotten: the second commandment.