I spent the first eighteen years of my life in an Essex village. Everyone knew everyone. In the graveyard at St Mary’s church on one side of the village green, the same names appeared on the gravestones. On the other side, the Baptist Church (still referred to as the Chapel by many of the older residents) had replaced the original tabernacle in the Sixties, but when I was little, child-related activities were held in what was essentially a hut on stilts.