The UK is full of extremely rude-sounding towns and villages. O n the road to Twatt, a message arrives from a resident there. Am I making the pilgrimage up through Scotland to this hamlet on the island of Orkney only to admire its notorious, unwittingly rude road sign?
At Cock Bridge, in Aberdeenshire, they have the same trouble as in Twatt. Why do they do it? The village of Shitterton, about 20 miles away, is much more interesting.
Residents here are quite accustomed to hobby-horse types like me wandering through to have a nose around and ask questions. Most are proud, even defiant about this startling name of theirs, which derives from the fact that about 1, years ago the site was an open sewer. Gordon directs my attention to an enterprising local plumber who has gone all-in on a branding opportunity, renaming his premises Pooh Corner.
Not every local person takes quite such pleasure in their geographic distinction however. I first became curious about these places — what it was like to live in them, what the benefits were, what were the frictions and frustrations for locals — when I read about the put-upon citizens of Fucking in Austria. This remote, socially conservative village had suffered from decades of unwanted attention, ever since the second world war when British and American soldiers passed through and took home word about a truly unforgettable little place.
The name is thought to stem from a centuries-old landowner. Instead of a standard aluminium sign, too easily dug up and thrown in the boot of a car, residents invested in a great big lump of limestone, about the size of a fridge and surely heavier.
