I wrote this essay for a community archive centred around this village in rural Cumbria where I live with my husband. The community archive belongs to the people of this village. But many stories in it are also about how we look after the places and people who shaped a place, not for nostalgia’s sake, but as a radical act of care. In a time when so much feels untethered, returning to the lives that came before us is a kind of resistance.

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