Germaine Greer's sex tale angers her neighbours

london: feminist writer germaine greer has earned the anger of her village neighbours by writing a tale about an allegedly fictional village full of wife-swapping, sex and greed. she has so infuriated locals in the essex village in eastern england where she lives that they are openly welcoming the possibility of her moving to australia. in recent months, greer has written in a national newspaper column of what she claims is a fictional mid-anglian village marked by dubious morals and small-mindedness.the village, she said, had endured a “paroxysm of wife swapping�, once boasted a local girl who ripped off her clothes to titillate the local menfolk and is rife with “seamy goings-on�. she also complained of how the “overwhelming vice� in the village, which she calls much turpitude, is greed, which leads to the sale of any parcel of land to developers and the annihilation of the rural ambience. despite greer’s insistence that much turpitude is entirely fictional, and could be any village in mid-anglia, angry locals in great chesterford —where she lives in an isolated and elegant period home —are convinced she is attacking them. residents of other nearby villages believe they, too, are being blackened unfairly. joan bruce, a pensioner in great chesterford, said: “i think most people will be glad to see the back of her. she has made absolutely no effort to join in the life of the village. yet in spite of that she feels she can make disparaging and uncalled-for comments about us. this is a nice village and we want to keep it that way.� other locals now dismiss the professor of english at warwick university and author of the 1970s classic the female eunuch as “inane drear�. steve parsons, a local shopkeeper, refused to deliver her newspaper after she branded his small shop “inadequate� in print. greer’s casual reference to wife swapping led to inquiries by the great chesterford parish council. michelle cookson, the council leader, said: “she wrote about wife swapping and a local girl who liked taking her clothes off in public, but we can’t find out who she is. apart from some partner swapping which probably goes on everywhere, there is no evidence of an organised wife swapping club —we have looked.� greer did not respond to a request for comment made through her agent. (the sunday times)