WE gate-crashed a lunch the other day. Uninvited, we sauntered into the thick of a very splendid occasion, tucked into the food on offer, managed to wangle ourselves a drink and plonked ourselves down on the top table.

Did we get manhandled off the premises and told to sling our respective hooks? Not a bit of it. We were welcomed with open arms by complete strangers and enveloped with friendship and bonhomie.

For this was Burn, the tiny North Yorkshire village with a gigantic heart, where residents were enjoying and imbibing in the Big Lunch.

Having lunch with your neighbours once a year was an idea started by the Eden Project in 2009 with the very simple aim of getting as many communities as possible across the UK to break bread together in an act of community, friendship and fun.

The Big Lunch project was born in the belief that we’re better equipped to tackle the challenges we face if we do so together, especially as research has shown communities are more fragmented with a lower sense of belonging than they were 40 years ago.

So for the past few years, residents of urban streets, estate avenues and village main streets up and down the country have been getting together for annual feasts of fun and fellowship.

Many of the stories behind the Big Lunch events are inspiring and heart-warming because they demonstrate communities in tune enough with each other to go the extra mile than those of us who merely nod at our neighbour as we hurry about our day to day business.

When it comes to those stories Burn is no exception. But there’s something a bit special about a place that doesn’t, for those who don’t know better, appear to have a lot going for it.

This seemingly innocuous spot straddles the busy A19 route south of Selby. If you keep to the 30mph speed limit as you pass through, you might notice the Wheatsheaf pub on the roadside, a Victorian edifice that could be a drinking house absolutely anywhere, such is its ordinariness.

You might, if you’re really taking care at the wheel, spot the chapel over the road from the pub, and if you’re sharply observant you could spot a road sign to the old second world war airfield, now home to a gliding club and a haven for dog walkers.

Other than that, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of place. It doesn’t have the touristy prettiness of other North Yorkshire villages further north in the dales or moors. The landscape is flat, with not a hill or undulation in sight.

The few houses are a mishmash of old, new and not so new. There’s no shop, school or park. Given its geography, clinging as it is to the edge of the North Yorkshire county boundary, it doesn’t get much attention, if any, from the folk at County Hall 55 miles away. And the A19 is like a gaping wound machete slash that splits the village in two.

Yet it doesn’t. Half the 400 residents might live on one side of this thundering traffic artery and the other half on the other, but it doesn’t stop them coming together. Being au fait with the green cross code is clearly a pre-requisite for living here…

Thundering or speeding through the place – as lorry drivers and motorists in a hurry are wont to do – you wouldn’t for one moment realise that Burn has more civic pride than your average steeped-in-history town or city.

For this little place of apparent no consequence has a lady mayoress, a mayor, baroness, viscount, duchess and grande dame. These honorary titles have been bestowed on much loved personalities like actress Jean Alexander, regional TV anchor Harry Gration, local broadcasters and TV journalists and none other than the grand dame of them all, Berwick Kaler. And every single one of them has graced the village with their presence to receive their honour.

Not only that, the village has its own Christmas lights, which put to shame the carping traders in some Yorkshire towns and cities who bemoan the lack of festive light but seem remarkably reluctant to follow Burn’s example of sorting it out themselves.

For Burn shows a basic truth – we are stronger as a group than as an individual. Canadian philosopher Jean Vanier observed that people are often good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don’t talk about it – they are the ones who make a community live. He could have been talking about Burn. And perhaps he was.