New statistics from the 2001 census show that Teesdale has the fewest openly gay cohabiting couples in England and Wales. Sarah Foster meets a lesbian who lives there regardless of her isolation.

ARGARET Avery is an unlikely maverick. She's neatly dressed and petite, with short blonde hair and an elfin face which belies her 60 years. She's also a retired psychology lecturer, guaranteeing her a respected place in society. But Margaret is a lesbian, which automatically makes her a cuckoo in the nest of her Middleton-in-Teesdale community.

According to the 2001 census, she's a real anomaly. It found that in the whole of Teesdale, only six cohabiting couples described themselves as being in same sex relationships - the lowest number in England and Wales. The figures were not much higher in other parts of the region like Hartlepool, Easington and Redcar, and of the ten towns with the least co-habiting gay couples, six were in the North-East.

In a separate survey, by the Government-funded organisation Sigma, more than half of Darlington's gay community said they had suffered verbal discrimination from strangers, which was double the national average. One in ten in the town had been attacked by homophobes, compared with the national average of one in 14.

The survey, along with a spate of recent attacks in Darlington and the surrounding area, has prompted the community safety partnership to distribute 150 personal attack alarms.

While the culture of homophobic hate that this suggests is not something Margaret has experienced personally, she says it's undoubtedly more difficult living in the North-East as a gay woman.

"There's an isolation in being gay in that you can't just sit down and start taking about your relationships in the way that people generally do. You have to make a statement and say 'Well actually, my previous relationships have been with women'. Immediately, you are stereotyping yourself."

Having realised she was gay in her late teens, Margaret has had plenty of time to adjust to people's reactions to this. She says that when she first came out, it was something to be hidden. "I was living in London with my family and it was very difficult because I found that I couldn't tell them. This was in the 1960s, which was great for free love but it was heterosexual love. I left my family because I couldn't deal with it with them."

In 1968, Margaret moved to Leeds to live with her partner. She says life was far from easy, not least because the only lesbian role model at the time was Radclyffe Hall, author of the depressing Well of Loneliness. "We did feel as if we were the only gay people in the world. There were no clubs, magazines or helplines," she says.

As she's got older, and homosexuality has generally become more accepted, Margaret says she's found it much easier. So when she retired as a single woman to Middleton-in-Teesdale four years ago, she felt comfortable about disclosing her sexuality. "I've reached a stage where I think if people don't like it, it's too bad," she says.

But how did the traditional farming community feel about having a lesbian in its midst? Margaret says: "I think on the whole, people have tried to ignore it. They've said 'Oh yes, that's fine' but didn't want to talk about it."

Having visited Middleton-on-Teesdale in the past and chosen it as her home carefully, Margaret feels it has largely met her expectations, with people receiving her warmly. But she says she has met with the odd display of ignorance. "I've had it said to me since I've been here, 'What you want is a good man. You must've had a bad experience with a man'. The old things do come out."

While she hasn't gone out of her way to advertise her sexuality, it has become known through the grapevine, leading to an unforeseen consequence - other gay people confiding in her. She has often found their experiences of village life to be much less positive than her own.

"I can think of one person in particular who didn't even want to walk around in the community for fear of being targeted. They were really suffering. I've heard other things about people being threatened and beaten up. I felt upset that it was still going on because I thought we had moved on a lot further than that," she says.

Conscious of her responsibility to people like this, Margaret risked her own acceptance by writing a letter to the local newspaper, highlighting the problem of gay people's isolation in rural communities and inviting correspondences. "I've had several letters since which really just said what I was pointing out. The people ranged from young to late middle age, and a couple of them were in marriages and felt very stuck and very unhappy. The main thing that's been said is that they would welcome a point of contact where they could at least talk about their sexuality, even if they weren't going to do anything about it," says Margaret.

She acknowledges that due to the nature of village life, it would be difficult to establish such a point of contact, as guaranteeing anonymity would be a problem, but still feels that this needs to be done. In the meantime, she intends to continue leading by example, not least by agreeing to this interview.

"I have told a few people you were coming and I think the general feeling, except for one person, who said 'I'm really proud of you' was 'Why do you want to talk about it?' The reason I'm doing it is for other people. If it helps one person then it's a good thing and I've got broad shoulders," says Margaret.

She expects a positive reaction from the village, but casually mentions that she has an upcoming WI meeting and wonders what the women there will make of it. When I ask incredulously if she's a member, she laughs. "I'm in the WI, which is hilarious. I contacted the organisation and said 'Is there anything to say I can't be an open lesbian in the WI?' and they wrote back and said no. I would love to be radical in the WI."

Margaret attributes the prejudice against homosexuals in villages like hers to ingrained ideas and the perception of them as a threat. "This is a traditional farming community and they may be seen as a threat to the family. There are some lovely people and the village is a really nice place to live but I can see that these traditional values go against more liberal views," she says.

Barry Birch, community development manager for Gay Advice Darlington (Gad), agrees, referring to the "tyranny of uniformity" of village life. He says: "More often than not, if you don't conform, you are a target. Ignorance breeds fear and fear can breed prejudice and even violence. These are issues that we are trying to confront but it's a lot easier in big cities."

Barry believes that the onus is on community leaders like parish councillors and clergy to make more effort to promote diversity in rural villages, but he feels there are grounds for hope. "Society is moving into the 21st century and is starting to have a 'live and let live' attitude, it's just that the smaller villages are taking longer than the larger cities in getting there," he says.

* Gad can be contacted on (01325) 247355.