Farming Breeds: Brigette – the ‘friendliest’ woman in the village
Join us for a funny, irreverent look at some of the characters that make the British countryside what it is. Our tongue-in-cheek guide puts characters such as the retired Major, the “perfect” next-door farmer and the young tearaway under the microscope. Here we meet Brigette – the “friendliest” woman in the village…
Brigette’s really friendly.
Over the years, in fact, she’s been “friendly” with just about every bloke in the village.
“It’s just my nature,” she says, perched on a bar stool in The Plough, smoking a cigarette in a holder. For 20 years, the most popular joke in this pub has involved one of the locals saying that Brigitte’s entertained every single man in the village and all the regulars chorusing: every single man – and most of the married ones, too.
“I’m a physical person,” she says, her legs dangling suggestively towards the snug bar drinkers, most of whom know her quite well. Most of whom know her very well, in fact.
Her real name is Joan, not Brigette, but a travelling shoe salesman told her she looked like the French star one night in the early 1980s. “Come back to my bungalow,” she whispered.
He left her with a new name, a shoe cleaning kit and a baby which, nine months later, she christened Elvis. Nowadays, Elvis – who prefers to be called Christopher – is studying geography at university.
“He doesn’t even come back to see his poor old mum at Christmas,” She sobs, gulping a gin and tonic, courtesy of the tall stranger at the other end of the bar. “Never rely on a man.”
The latest bit of news in The Plough, meanwhile, is that young Danny went round to her house to cut the hedge and ended up staying all weekend. “That Danny will break a few hearts before he’s done,” Brigette says. “Not mine, though,” she adds. “Mine was in pieces long before he ever got to it.”
So Brigette swapped sides of the bar and now sits there every evening, getting older and wearing a little more make-up and ruing the passage of time.
Brigette can’t hold a job down for very long. “It’s my free spirit,” she says.
“Free spirit or no free spirit,” shrieked the sub-postmistress as she sacked her, “I’m not tolerating that kind of thing in my sorting office.”
Brigette even worked in the pub briefly. She made a pretty good barmaid: she really knew how to work the punters. Rumour had it, however, she helped herself to the gin. Rumour had it, she had her hand in the till. Rumour had it, she has her hand in the landlord’s wallet – and that his wallet was in his trouser pocket at the time. “It’s either her or me,” the landlord’s wife screamed.
So Brigette swapped sides of the bar and now sits there every evening, getting older and wearing a little more make-up and ruing the passage of time.
“I should have gone to Hollywood when I was young,” she says. “Women like me are appreciated out there.”
“You’re appreciated here,” one of the younger drinkers quipped. He’d had a few beers and reckoned she was “up for anything”. He was after experience.
“I’m not too old to give you a clip round the ear,” she replied, then regained her posture in a bid to impress that stranger, still at the other end of the bar. An hour later, she had sidled along and was on his lap. “My, what strong arms you’ve got,” she purred. “You’ve been in the gym, haven’t you?”
He hadn’t, though. He had been doing some casual work on a nearby pig farm.
She didn’t object to the smell of the pigs and he, in turn, didn’t object to the smell of her perfume. Both were equally selfless and magnanimous gestures.