Not Better But Worse...

...The cry - often heard locally - "Things were different in my day" is a sad if frequent lament. Sad if only because the speaker, though alive, clearly accepts that his or her day is essentially over. A form of spiritual defeatism not far short of the mortal sin of despair.

The speaker inevitably makes unfavourable comparison between the Elysian days of yore and the modern decline of all and anything that could remotely resemble civilised living and/or manners.

Although instinctively of this very party myself - a fully paid up and founding member of the school of grumpy old clerics - I tend to bite my tongue from speaking thus howsoever tempted by, for example, E's dire taste in music or the absence of a decent parsnip from the local store (all the best are shipped from field straight to London, though if we're very good and lucky a few may return to the local supermarket a week or so later).

There are fundamental changes for the good that must be acknowledged whenever the tale turns to haranguing the present - real rural poverty is now largely gone (though we do all now tend to suffer from the opposite ill of 'affluenza' - a title I approve of if deploring the thing itself), most of our youth can have an education (even if too many spurn the opportunity), there is far less housing tied to jobs (all right, so no one can any longer afford to buy a house!)...etc., etc.

A story though that is horribly shocking in its own right has made me desperately yearn for times when such things could not and did not happen. I refer to the shooting dead of a sixteen year old child at Streatham ice rink. The death is appalling, the age of the victim is shocking, the callous public killing so awful. But it is the very location of the crime that has made me pause.

Streatham 'Silver Blades' - as it was in those days - was a teenage haunt of mine. We were never great skaters, but we whizzed round well enough. Attempting to chat up girls whilst struggling to maintain balance as well as poise was an invaluable lesson in life - do that successfully and the rest is a doddle believe me.

The most offence any caused in those days was to form a chain of skaters whipping round the rink with, inevitably, the one on the outside being shot from the chain on a bend being thus catapulted into the crowd. Stern admonition to desist or to depart immediately followed, but at no point did anyone ever fear assassination, nor were there notices displayed 'Caution: crazy people with guns operate in this area."

I mourn for the boy and his family and I do truly yearn that what we once had is now lost - probably forever.