Loss of Community Spirit. - Page 2

Kymba · #26 (**permalink**) 29-12-2007, 08:50 PM

Having grown up in a small village with a great community spirit (any excuse for street party etc) Where everyone would help everyone out when it was needed and everyone kept an eye on all the children when they were out playing. I was totally shell shocked when i moved to London and after 2 yrs i didnt know one of my neighbours They all seemed to work 24/7 and no one was ever around to socialise with and get to know.. Kids never played outside they use to get trains and trams from age of about 7 into nearest town on their own and be left to own devices.. (How sad is that)
As manyof you Know I have been trying to get a wildlife centre open for local children and the community to use.. But was constently banging my head against a brick wall with Local council etc Trying to get them to help and get involved.. yet they all moan all time about young kids having no where to go and nothing to do.. especially evenings, weekends and Holidays.. No one wants to Know is the problem..
Thank goodness a local school thought it was a good idea and offered to be my Partner in getting it off the ground... Hopefully within a couple of years a few more will want to become involved in other areas around me so more kids (and Adults) will have somewhere to go and something to do.
Theres to much of "Its Someone elses problem"

Fourwings · #27 (**permalink**) 29-12-2007, 09:03 PM

Good on you Kymba, your willingness to get involved and try to do something for the young people in your community is fantastic.

If more people adopted your attitude it would have a very positive impact on the levels of ASB commited in many areas.

tufftie · #28 (**permalink**) 30-12-2007, 10:48 AM

I know just what you mean - when I was living in Cornwall everybody said hello and chatted, whether you knew them or no (and the same in Orkney) - saying hello to everybody was normal. Here they look at you as if you're bonkers; it took me a while to adjust. Be a relief when i'm out of here!

Good luck with your project - as you say very few people do anything for children and then complain when they hang around with nothing to do. There's only two of us on this street which do anything for the kids - my neigbour takes them (and me!) out for walks and i have them in for board games and to do some gardening. If i was nearer you i'd give you a hand with it - sounds interesting but just a tad too far from here, sorry.

Countrymum · #29 (**permalink**) 31-12-2007, 10:44 AM

We're very lucky in that we live in a small village that still has a good collective spirit. Even though its had a big influx of incomers (ourselves included), there is no perceptible them and us atmosphere, and there are plenty of events where everyone gets together. Like anything, it does come down to the efforts of the same few people, but I think the numbers getting involved are growing. We've been mobilised to fight a development, we have the delights of the village festival which runs over 10 days with a really wide range of events, and then a load of stuff featuring the church, the school and the two pubs (although not necessarily all at the same time).

Of course we're lucky, and I think so every time we think of moving (other half slightly still pines for living by the sea, and given we're about in the middle of the country couldn't get much further away). We have friends who are doing up a big house a couple of villages over, but now thinking that maybe they won't move in there, they'll miss this village too much!

So, if we could just have some affordable housing to keep the mix in the village fresh, then it would be okay. And as long as our post office is not revealed anytime soon as being a candidate for closure!

tufftie · #30 (**permalink**) 31-12-2007, 11:32 AM

My friend in Ecuador really noticed the difference when she went out there. Real community spirit - old to young. Also people do things that needed to be done - it's not another persons problem. There are some problems but on the whole...

I think the commuter areas are the bad ones - too transient.

Gill Catton · #31 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Cheeseman

Lack of community spirit in a more general public theme is down to how and where we live nowadays.

Formerly, entire families lived in the same village for generations and everyone knew everyone else. Life centred around work, which was usually in the same village, and social interaction was conducted in places like the pub, church, and over the garden fence, etc.

Today, youngsters can barely afford to buy their own homes and are clobbered by Inheritance tax and the likes and the majority cannot afford to buy a property in the place where they were brought up, if they were brought up in one place and had not moved home more than once in their childhood.
Work is generally a commute to another town or even county.
Socialising in the old sense has become a lost art with people talking to just family and close friends at best. How many people can name the people who live in the five houses either side of them? Not many I bet.

The only time I come across what could be called community spirit in a non-profiteering sense of things is when people jouin to gether to protest against a development that is likely to affect them. Even that dies a death once the development has been dropped/completed.

Sounds like a sad world I'm painting but generally it's true with just a few silver-lined clouds. I can only see it getting worse as well what with all the extra housing and competition for jobs and the almost ghetto like culture of some foreign groups that make little effort to integrate with the local community other than their own. Then again perhaps we could learn something from them and reinstate our own local communities.

Here's the first small step. Start saying hello in passing to people in your street. It's surprising how contagious it can be.

Cheers,

Adam

I thiink you have hit the nail on the head. There's no way I can afford to live in the village where I grew up, slowly the families who have been there for centuries are being squeezed out of the village the people who know whos owns what land and where the barn owls are or the short cut to the woods or where the best fossil sites are are being lost. The groups of kids that grew up together who would continue a community are forced to move out and this community is lost but for accidental meetings at Christmas in the pub..

its very sad

P.S. when I grow old, there's no way I'd want my kids or other family to give up their homes or jobs or whatever to look after me! I'd much rather choose a home and move in - when I still have the faculties to do so. If I reach a point of needing total care - of being unable to do anything for myself I hope I have the official choice to opt out (and come around again as a seagull)

Paul mabbott · #32 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 08:00 PM

My experience is different. Yes, for sure when people didn't have cars they had to spend more time in their locality and when most people worked in one or two trades, at one or two factories, then everyone knew each other. I'm not too sure how much that built up a 'community spirit' since it was rather stifling and many young people would just give up on it an head for London where there was a different type of 'community spirit' - one that you chose. I speak from experience, you gather!

I certainly do not think there's a link between ethnic homogeneity and 'community spirit'. Certainly in the very poorest parts of the country there will be an exotic mix of people but problems in such areas relate more to poverty and lack of facilities than anything else.
On the contrary, I always find a more friendly community where there is a heavy mixture of ethnic origins. When I lived in east London our immediate neighbours were Greek Cypriot, Somali, Indian, Irish and Spanish (and we weren't native Londoners either) and we all tried to help each other out - over the wider locality we were friends with people of all sorts of origins (Poles, Caribbean, South African, Zimbabwean, Colombian, Bangladeshi ..... no this could go on) and it was a pleasant place to be except for the commuter traffic from Essex to the City, the road building, the supermarket developments ....

Similar thing in Sheffield - our neighbours are all chatty (too chatty sometimes), people say hello on the streets, everyone says, 'Thank you.' to the 'bus driver who returns the compliment. There are parts of Sheffield which are predominantly Afro-Caribbean, "Asian" (in the broadest sense), Chinese and Polish but it's notable that the "problem" areas are all-white, Yorkshire-speaking ex-working class estates where there is absolutely no ethnic mixing! So I suspect that you've got the problem diametrically the wrong way round!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wightman

An interesting topic. When I grew up the community was made up of mostly people that knew each other, or knew people of their families. These days it's more intergrated with families coming from different countries, and the government expecting them to intergrate without any problems. Is this possible? As for children, how can they learn respect when their parents have none. It seems to me that young people are taking longer to mature these days, and don't like facing responsibility.

Paul mabbott · #33 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 08:03 PM

Well said - but I want to be an elephant. The problem is that when you get very old and/or decrepit you don't have the means to hasten your departure ... or the legs to get to the nearest motorway ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

P.S. when I grow old, there's no way I'd want my kids or other family to give up their homes or jobs or whatever to look after me! I'd much rather choose a home and move in - when I still have the faculties to do so. If I reach a point of needing total care - of being unable to do anything for myself I hope I have the official choice to opt out (and come around again as a seagull)

Paul mabbott · #34 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 08:14 PM

As I've noted elsewhere, I don't have problems with chatty neighbours - up here everyone will give you a nod, a smile or a chat.

This was also true in my parts of London but it was noticeable that if you were walking in Dulwich or Richmond or similar places, just smile at someone and they'd look terrified - you stop doing it in case they call the police. People of a certain disposition are just terrified of people not of their set (i.e. not white middle-class people from their own neighbourhood. Since they're afraid (for no obvious reason) then their fear/comtempt/prejudice is passed on to their children and is also clear to the people that they're afraid of/hate/have contempt for ... and then those people reciprocate the feelings and the whole vicious circle goes on and on.

Myself, I blame two things (three if you include the Daily Mail and the Sun, or perhaps that's four ... then there's the Daily Telegraph) television (where do children get an example of good, friendly, helpful behaviour? from Eastenders, celebrity shows?

) and cars - I won't go into that (would take too long) but I do believe that the obsession with cars is probably the worst, most destructive thing that has happened to our society ....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Cheeseman

Lack of community spirit in a more general public theme is down to how and where we live nowadays.

Formerly, entire families lived in the same village for generations and everyone knew everyone else. Life centred around work, which was usually in the same village, and social interaction was conducted in places like the pub, church, and over the garden fence, etc.

Today, youngsters can barely afford to buy their own homes and are clobbered by Inheritance tax and the likes and the majority cannot afford to buy a property in the place where they were brought up, if they were brought up in one place and had not moved home more than once in their childhood.
Work is generally a commute to another town or even county.
Socialising in the old sense has become a lost art with people talking to just family and close friends at best. How many people can name the people who live in the five houses either side of them? Not many I bet.

The only time I come across what could be called community spirit in a non-profiteering sense of things is when people jouin to gether to protest against a development that is likely to affect them. Even that dies a death once the development has been dropped/completed.

Sounds like a sad world I'm painting but generally it's true with just a few silver-lined clouds. I can only see it getting worse as well what with all the extra housing and competition for jobs and the almost ghetto like culture of some foreign groups that make little effort to integrate with the local community other than their own. Then again perhaps we could learn something from them and reinstate our own local communities.

Here's the first small step. Start saying hello in passing to people in your street. It's surprising how contagious it can be.

Cheers,

Adam

agrumpycow · #35 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

As I've noted elsewhere, I don't have problems with chatty neighbours - up here everyone will give you a nod, a smile or a chat.
Myself, I blame two things television and cars - I won't go into that (would take too long) but I do believe that the obsession with cars is probably the worst, most destructive thing that has happened to our society ....

Funny you should say that, I remember last year I was out trimming the hedge between our gardens with my neighbour and he commented on a similar thing.

He can recall when he was younger every weekend men being out in their gardens (which didn't have 6ft fences, etc.) pottering about chatting to each other. But now front gardens have been replaced by drives and weekends are spent out in their cars or with their heads under the bonnets.

Paul mabbott · #36 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by agrumpycow

Funny you should say that, I remember last year I was out trimming the hedge between our gardens with my neighbour and he commented on a similar thing.
He can recall when he was younger every weekend men being out in their gardens (which didn't have 6ft fences, etc.) pottering about chatting to each other. But now front gardens have been replaced by drives and weekends are spent out in their cars or with their heads under the bonnets.

Ane women talking about this and that while hanging up the washing (or the papadums at place I lived). And the children playing in the road? That's one of the things that most annoys me about cars - they take the roads away from the people!

Now the only time you see the man of the household is when he's cleaning the car (yeuk).

agrumpycow · #37 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

And the children playing in the road? That's one of the things that most annoys me about cars - they take the roads away from the people!

I agree with that 100%
I have many fond memories as a child playing cricket and rounders and other such games in the street. The only things in that same street today are the cars and vans, averaging 2 per house, plus at least one abandoned car, and not a kid in sight!

Paul mabbott · #38 (**permalink**) 03-01-2008, 09:04 PM

Yes, them as well, but mainly football! Our street isn't too bad but you still get rat-runners coming down here at 50mph eating a sandwich while talking on their 'phones. When we first moved in we had a whole football team of boys but there seem to be more lasses nowadays who aren't so interested in the beautiful game

. But it is great that the youngsters can still safely play in the street - we usually have an adult gardening (or car washing

) to keep an eye on things and throw a heap of manure at speeding Mercs ...

As mentioned we had hoped to get a football team to challenge the neighbouring street but there a householder complained to the police who said, in effect, "You are not allowed to play in the street!" What is the world coming to? ... and other grumpy sayings!

Quote:

Originally Posted by agrumpycow

I have many fond memories as a child playing cricket and rounders and other such games in the street. The only things in that same street today are the cars and vans, averaging 2 per house, plus at least one abandoned car, and not a kid in sight!

tufftie · #39 (**permalink**) 04-01-2008, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

P.S. when I grow old, there's no way I'd want my kids or other family to give up their homes or jobs or whatever to look after me! I'd much rather choose a home and move in - when I still have the faculties to do so. If I reach a point of needing total care - of being unable to do anything for myself I hope I have the official choice to opt out (and come around again as a seagull)

This has really been bugging me - I can't think that anyone would want to be a burden on a family member; certainly I wouldn't. This isn't the point really but what I did for my father, giving up everything to look after him was second nature to me (I didn't even have to think about it) I did it for love and have no regrets. He knew I'd find it more stressful if he was in a home and at that point he was more comfortable in his own home. Two months before the end he chose to go into a hopice (sorry can't go any further here as these aren't hte memories i chose to have of him).
I'm in a similar situation with my old cat at the moment, he's got liver cancer, but I can't move and am stuck in a difficult situation until the end. There have been ideas thrown at me which I will not take - again because I love him but this is my personal choice.

The whole point was we should not be putting our need to gain money before our family (i'm certainly not implying that anyone on here does or would) but it's sad that we have no time to be there for them instead of doing whatever it takes to feed the money making addiction. Maybe I just notice it more here because I'm in the main old folks town? I can hear what they say on the buses...comments like 'well the never come to see me anymore now i'm in the home.' are more than common. These are also people that would be able to function in the community with a little help - they are old - they can't walk so fast, they don't see and hear so well, they're not so flexible as they were. etc. Is this reason enough for them to be in a home?

As I also said before it was a very small part of the jigsaw anyway.

Fourwings · #40 (**permalink**) 04-01-2008, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

when I grow old, there's no way I'd want my kids or other family to give up their homes or jobs or whatever to look after me! I'd much rather choose a home and move in - when I still have the faculties to do so. If I reach a point of needing total care - of being unable to do anything for myself I hope I have the official choice to opt out (and come around again as a seagull)

I'm with you all the way on this one Gill, yes its all down to ones personal choices and beliefs but I personally wouldn't wish to be a burden to anyone especially my family.
There is no doubt in my mind, the choice should be there if you so wish.

Wild-Woman · #41 (**permalink**) 04-01-2008, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourwings

Do not despair people, community spirit is still out there, it just takes a little more looking for these days.

I'd like to echo Steve's comments here. This was shown to me very prominently just 9 weeks ago when my Dad lost his battle against cancer.
The neighbours surrounding my parents home, rallied strongly to give her and us support. Even neighbours at a distance were supportive. Mum and Dad lead quiet unobtrusive lives, taking others into account at all times and the payback for their strength and belief in curtesy and kindness has come back to my Mum and has helped her tremendously.
Everyone 'looks out' for my Mum, especially at times when they know that we can't be with her as we all work. It's a comfort having folk around her like this and a great help to us. So as Steve says, it's there,community spirit, it shows especially at a time like this and I think we're all capable of it and not thinking the worst of everyone.

agrumpycow · #42 (**permalink**) 04-01-2008, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

I'd like to echo Steve's comments here. This was shown to me very prominently just 9 weeks ago when my Dad lost his battle against cancer.
The neighbours surrounding my parents home, rallied strongly to give her and us support. Even neighbours at a distance were supportive. Mum and Dad lead quiet unobtrusive lives, taking others into account at all times and the payback for their strength and belief in curtesy and kindness has come back to my Mum and has helped her tremendously.
Everyone 'looks out' for my Mum, especially at times when they know that we can't be with her as we all work. It's a comfort having folk around her like this and a great help to us. So as Steve says, it's there,community spirit, it shows especially at a time like this and I think we're all capable of it and not thinking the worst of everyone.

Sorry to hear about your Dad, Wild-Woman.
It's touching to hear that people rallied round to help and I'm sure it meant a lot to you all.

Wild-Woman · #43 (**permalink**) 04-01-2008, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by agrumpycow

Sorry to hear about your Dad, Wild-Woman.
It's touching to hear that people rallied round to help and I'm sure it meant a lot to you all.

It certainly did and I should add that I had support going on in the background from certain folk from WAB, who knew what was happening and when he passed away. I won't embarrass them by saying who they were but one particular lady really helped me through some dark hours.
So what I'm trying to say is that community spirit exists here on WAB very strongly- and it helped.

Fourwings · #44 (**permalink**) 06-01-2008, 10:25 AM

So sorry to hear about your dad Jules.
As you say when folk are in need it seems that quite often there is still a large willingness amid others in the community to help and support them.

Since becoming a Police Community Support Officer I have learnt a vast amount about how various communities interact and work together and as I stated earlier community spirit is still very much alive, its just that the way in which it shows itself has changed.
In todays modern fast-paced society alot of people simply do not seem to have time to make the effort to get to know everyone around them, but that does not necessarily mean they dont care.
In most cases when the chips are down and something happens within a community, people will still pull together to help if they can.

Steve.

tufftie · #45 (**permalink**) 06-01-2008, 02:01 PM

That's a good chunk of the problem though - the fact that people are caught in the material world trap (whether through choice or necessity) and they don't have the time, not just for others but for themselves too. i think this is a quote from one of John Lane's books but we are all functioning at machine pace and not at the slower human pace and this can't really be healthy on any level, can it?

Though I understand what you are saying and I realise there's still community spirit in some areas - and very much so in St Just, Cornwall where I spent many years; and I imagine lots of other (non transient?) areas too.