alt Hacker News> There are 4 children in our village at the "local" primary school
Four? How... What? How does any of this actually work (you clearly live there, so it obviously does?) That seems like you're living somewhere that's just like ... empty? How do any services/infrastructure/... How many old people live in this village?
Is this the demographic collapse people are going on about?
That sounds like the village in which I spent my teens. Population of ~500, and for <18s there was myself, my sibling, and there was a "new" housing estate had a handful of kids around 5.
We didn't have nice paths, there was a (former) main road going through the middle of the village. As far as local infrastructure, there was the pub, a car mechanic, and every few years a corner shop would open up and last about 2-3 years before shutting down again.
If you needed groceries you went to the larger village (population ~1000) which was about a 40 minute walk along the main road (which only got dedicated pavements after I had moved out), or a 5 minute drive. For amenities that larger village had 2 bars, 2 churches, a takeaway, a supermarket, a primary school and a garden centre.
If you needed anything more than groceries, you needed to go to one of the nearby towns which were ~20-30 minutes by car and (according to google maps) ~2 hours walk.