Borderlands

What does a county mean to its residents? Here in Frome we are virtually on the border between Somerset and Wiltshire. Not far to the south west is Dorset, a few minutes north the less-than-poetic acronym that is BANES (Bath and North East Somerset). Although we are in Somerset, our DAB radio thinks BBC Wiltshire is our local station. To listen to BBC Somerset we have to go analogue. And we tuned into the Beeb’s local offering this morning -  an outside broadcast from Watchet; a coastal town at the far end of the county from here that has little in common with Frome except the last line of its postal address. It set me thinking about county identity – is there such a thing for most of us? (We’ll leave Yorkshire out of the equation).

Reflections on identity? Nunney Castle (which is in Somerset)

Our immediate neighbours here at Weekender Towers work in BANES, Wiltshire and Somerset. Frome people don’t think twice about shopping in or using the better train service from Warminster and are highly exercised about the recent controversial changes to access at the Longleat Estate (both in Wiltshire).

I was born in Essex and identify more with the town of my birth than the land of TOWIE. Cricket fans may feel attached to their county teams and we all have a financial stake in the administrative body via our council taxes. Maybe if you live in the geographical heart of a county, working and playing within its boundaries, it means much more. Parents with children will think carefully about which local authority runs which schools and that may well colour attitudes to the lines on the map. But generally speaking, if you’re in border country, does it really make any difference to day-to-day living and state of mind? Does anyone on this side of the divide say, “I’m not going to the new Waitrose in Warminster because it’s in Wiltshire”? I doubt it very much.