Overton, Whitchurch and Oakley

Above: Jane Huxford

Above: Toni Standford

Above: The team at Overton Surgery

While other counties may fall prey to the slow strangulation of village life, Hampshire manages to proudly preserve this amiable existence. Our local characters and independent local businesses are key to the success of maintaining the unique character of our many villages.

The village doctor
It may seem that things never change much in our Hampshire villages, but take a peek behind the Georgian house facades and village greens, and the way of life is in constant flux, creeping inexorably into every corner of life. Nothing illustrates this better, perhaps, than in the portrait of the modern village doctor. 

Once often a single soul struggling against a sea of ailments, today he or she operates as part of a busy and specialised team, offering villagers state-of-the-art facilities. Take Dr Robert Lorge, for instance, at the Oakley and Overton Partnership. When he arrived fresh from St George’s Hospital in London as a medical registrar in 1976, to dip his toe into the waters of a rural general practice, there were just two doctors. They were considered highly innovative when they engaged a nurse. Today the practice comprises of some seven doctors, three healthcare assistants, a midwife, four nurses, district nurses, health visitors and administrators. As Dr Lorge says: “Now it’s very much a team effort.”

The breadth of such a practice allows the individual partners to specialise in their own areas of expertise, be it minor injuries, nose-and-throat problems or, in Dr Lorge’s more unusual case, altitude medicine – which came after a trek in Nepal on a sabbatical some 11 years ago.  This also spawned one of the practice’s favourite charities, Community Action Nepal, for which villagers have raised some £30,000 since it was founded. Indeed, it’s this sense of community and the stability of village life which, despite all the other changes taking place, remain – and what Dr Lorge appreciates the most. Just like his predecessors, he can say: “I have known a lot of my patients over a long period of time and I’m seeing people that I knew as babies who now who have families of their own.”

The village barber
Things aren’t what they used to be in village life and nowhere is this more startling than in the changing face and, perhaps more pertinently, gender of the village barber. Toni Standford, who opened The Men’s Room in Overton some 12 months ago, is just about as far away from the portly, cut-throat-razor-wielding gents’ hairdresser as you can get.

It must be a welcome change, though, for not only has Toni, who is 29, brought many customers with her from Basingstoke, where she worked previously, but she has also drawn new customers from all over the area, including Whitchurch, Kingsclere and Tadley. As her husband and business partner Michael, 36, who, rather handily is a bank manager, says:
“We’ve done fantastically well. In fact, we can’t really believe how well it has gone.”
The couple have four children aged from two to 10 and there’s a definite family feeling to the shop, with Michael bringing the children down on his days off to help clean the mirrors and windows, sweep the floor and chat to customers.

The couple, who live in old Basing, wanted a village location for their business because they like the personal touch; they enjoy being able to walk down the street and recognise people, rather than the “ever-changing rota” of faces. They also like getting into the spirit of village life, dressing up all the children for the village’s famous sheep fair in May, for instance.
“Everyone has been so friendly,” says Toni. “When we arrived we were told that it would take us 12 years to be accepted. Well, I reckon it has taken us just 12 months.”

The village smallholder
Jane Huxford is at the forefront of what she thinks might be a new wave of cottage industry. Quite literally so. For Jane (opposite) makes jams and chutneys, lemon curd and cakes for sale in her cottage kitchen. These days, though, the workplace is an architect-designed extension at the back, fashioned out of up-to-date solid Douglas Fir wood beams and a shiny, ceramic tiled floor.

Jane moved with her husband David, an IT consultant, to the cottage in Tufton, outside Overton, 10 years ago when they felt that they had outgrown their previous garden. “We wanted more land,” says Jane. And that is exactly what they got – 16 acres of it.
First Jane invested in four sheep, which turned into 12 and now her flock of 50 Corriedales, Hampshire Down/Jacobs mix and Shetlands gracefully graze in the field across the road. They provide her with wool, which she gets spun in Wales and dyed using natural vegetable colours, sheepskins, pure wool blankets and, of course, meat. This year, they also produced 20 lambs. So how did this former secretary from Fleet cope with that? Seemingly, it was a spring breeze. “The sheep do all the work themselves,” she says.

On the rest of the smallholding, she grows plants and vegetables which she sells with her preserves at farmers’ markets and specialist food shops in London. She also keeps
chickens and has even had a few pigs in the past.
Jane, who has four grown-up children and five grandchildren, thinks she’s not so unusual these days, in wanting to ‘get back in touch’ with the earth.
The only help she employs is at shearing time and David in his spare time, but she has absolutely no interest in turning her project into a bigger business, revelling in what she describes as her “new lovely way of life.”