What I Would Do If I Was Still Living in Britain

I was inspired to write this post by an article I read today where a "neighbourhood hit squad" (I'm not keen on the nomenclature!) got so fed up with the fly-tipping and general mess in areas of Leeds which have "poor environmental quality" that they got a skip, moved all the rubbish and rubble, and cleaned the place up.

Perfect - and a classic example of civic pride. Civic pride means: Being concerned about what goes on in your area. It means caring about the fact that the place might be looking like a tip. It means not allowing yobs and drunkards to take over the area and intimidate people. It means making sure a park is a park, and not a haven for drug users. Civic pride does not mean joining your local history society and sitting at home cowering, hoping yobs might leave you in peace. It does not mean being proud of what your community did or did not do in 1942 - whilst being afraid of going out on a Friday night.

Civic pride that translates into direct action is sorely lacking in today's Britain. When I lived in Edinburgh 2 years ago, there was a very icy period in December. Pavements and roads became ice rinks. I was shocked to see that nobody in our neighbourhood (right in the middle of town and an extremely well-to-do do area!) gritted or de-iced the pavement even directly outside their houses, or put salt on their own icy porch. They all preferred to slip on the extremely hazardous ways, rather than do anything at all. "The council should do it" was the consensus. But the council did nothing at all - official reason: It was too dangerous, as the roads were icy (!!!) That was probably when I realized that attitudes really really had to change in the UK.

The lemming-like default muttering of "What d'you want to do about it" is responsible for accepting everything and doing nothing. In other words let the whole shebang deteriorate ever further.Civic pride anyone?

Whenever I'm in England, I have this vision of a huge bottle of Domestos and giving everything a right old scrubbing. For every surface there is grimy, grubby, sticky, dusty, mouldy, greasy, claggy, or just plain dirty. So this is what I would do nowadays if I still lived there: I'd start cleaning. See huge amounts of dirt somewhere? Get a few people together ( a "neighbourhood hit squad") and clean the living daylight out of the place!

The other thing I cannot stand in the UK (and which will probably prevent me from living there again) is the sordidness of the "Friday night culture". Tarts, yobs, vomit, drunkenness, vile behaviour etc etc., we all know the drill. I still remember only too well being too scared and disgusted of ever going out on Friday evening. But why should one cower in one's home and let mob rule take the place over? So this is what  would do: I'd get people together who are similarly fed up with the situation and simply sit in those Friday night hotspots. Normally dressed, and normally behaved - but out in force. See how the yobs and tarts would like that!

Re-claim those town centres! Tidy up rubbish and litter when it fouls up your area! Don't wait for "the council", the "government" etc.  - do something. Do it yourself! Show that you care! Show some civic pride! And don't always go on about patriotism - that won't clear the streets of rubbish, won't tell yobs what's what. But civic pride will.