I don't know pfr.

If it's of any interest, I'll give my own background. I was born 1960 in Shrewsbury. I don't really remember my time there or that much (except to say that on a much later in life visit I could still find my way to my first primary school, the church, the hall, etc.) about 3 miles out of town.
We moved to N Wales when I was 6 or 7. We then moved (dad's Abbey branch manage job again….) to a village near Tunbridge Wells where I started my 3rd year in secondary school. It's the Welsh one which I moved back to when I was 18 that I reflect most on.

That village was possible a little bit of an odd one given that it was only a few minutes by car to both Conwy and Llandudno but it could be viewed as a bit backward then. While there was a small C of E church, the village then was largely Welsh chapel and the majority of people were Welsh first language. All 7 (I'm discounting a couple that moved in my time) kids that I've just counted who were with a year of me (yes, it was that small and there was only one girl in my actual school year) spoke Welsh at home and all bar one lived on one of the small farms. There were a couple of short rows of houses but the village overall was quite spread out.

It was a pretty tight knit community with the good and bad (does anywhere ever match a romantic picture of the perfect happy village?) that I guess goes with it but pretty enterprising for a small population. It had a large village hall and I remember them booking a much older version of the here singing about a bluetit. Not that I ever learned to speak Welsh I enjoyed things like that and people from the surrounding area to the hall. Not really my thing but they had a gala and a procession with lots of other gala queens, etc. proceeding from the "green" to the playing field and hall. They even formed a football team (rumour has it helped by the manager also being the manager of a local brewery depot – supposedly one way to get a job…)

Coming back to us kids, miles to play in and we could do things like tracking or make dens as well as kick a ball around or cycle to another town/village but we could still get bored. For my part, I'm sure I never really saw what we had. My views have alternated over the years but really with my current 56yr old head, if I could re-run a time/place I lived, I'd pick there/then but with more appreciation of what was there/then. But times change and the village has changed. I'm not sure were you could find similar now.