Let's Blame Everyone Else
Spring has sprung and that felt like real sunshine today鈥ou know, the kind that actually warms the side of your face. It was time for me to get back on track with my Five Hundred Mile Diet. I announced to my incredulous family that I would brave the great outdoors and actually walk to the video shop to return that new Bill Murray film we were daft enough to rent. I鈥檒l gloss over how we spent much of the previous evening staring at the goggle-box and munching microwave popcorn. It just goes to show how easily you can slip back into those couch-potato habits when the weather turns a bit nippy.
So I put on my coat and gave the Zedettes a special hug. Looking into their wide-eyed teary faces made me decide, there and then, to impart an important family secret.
鈥淐hildren,鈥 I said, 鈥渏ust in case I don鈥檛 return鈥here鈥檚 something you ought to know鈥︹
鈥淲hat is it, Papa鈥 they asked.
鈥淪imply this, dearest ones鈥he chocolate biscuits are in that tin behind the baked beans.鈥
Then I was off, crunching through the broken glass and gazing at graffiti-covered walls as I set out on the two-mile round trip through the suburbs of Glasgow. This is not how I hoped things would be. I was expecting songbirds and daffodils. Yet, everywhere I turn these days I see desecration, defacement and destruction. No daffodils at all. They鈥檝e probably been yanked out by the yobs and that鈥檚 got to hurt.
Now it鈥檚 not as if I live in an area of urban deprivation. No, we鈥檙e talking about one of those terribly nice middle-class neighbourhoods where local residents go into a panic if the baker runs low on croissants. And if you manage to catch a glimpse of the yobs and vandals it鈥檚 difficult to believe that poverty is at the root of their problems. Most of them are wearing the latest branded sports clothes and communicating with each other via the kind of hi-tech mobile phones that wouldn鈥檛 look out of place in an episode of Star Trek. Designer Delinquents, I call them. It has a ring to it. Or ring tone, even.
So, how did things get this way? What happened to the good ol鈥 days when, if you saw a neighbour鈥檚 child drop a piece of litter, you were fully within your rights to deal with the situation by organising a horse-whipping? Community spirit, we called it. Has it gone completely?
Heck, no. Month after month I travel around Scotland and hear about the groups and individuals trying to make a difference. Some of them organise fund-raising events as part of our Let鈥檚 Do the Show Right Here series, others pursue more serious campaigns and feature in our Action Scotland programme. I remember schoolchildren in Dalmellingtion taking part in a big clean-up project and teenagers in Stonehaven involved in a midnight dip to help save the outdoor swimming pool.
But maybe we all need to do more. As I continued my walk today I passed a local primary school and saw a bitter little note tied to the gate. Apparently a quiz night organised by the PTA had been cancelled 鈥渄ue to lack of support鈥. It made me think. Perhaps if we all spent less time on couches, watching duff DVDs we might be able to do a little more for the community.
Now that would be a breath of fresh air.
