The Letter

This is the letter I wrote

Every time I read the letters page of your newspaper there is a letter from someone decrying modern life. Well there is a lot to be said for the modern world. We live in a world where most infectious diseases have been wiped out, certainly in Western countries. There used to be fears of too many people congregating for fear of Polio, not any more. We also live in world where people are not left to starve. Of course there are people who abuse the benefits system but that is the price we pay for having a safety net in case ill fortune befalls us.


We live in a world of unparalleled technology. I can carry my entire record collection in an iPod the size of a wallet. I can communicate with anybody in the world from my living room, or on the bus or anywhere. And although we can bemoan the lack of community there is now there are plenty of online communities for people to enjoy. We dismiss this sense of a virtual community at our peril. A close friend made online is still a close friend.

I am not about to dismiss the idea that we have lost a sense of community. We probably have. But this is not through choice. Society has become more mobile and people have had to move around to find work. The same families don’t live on the same street forever anymore. I was 6 in 1977 and I remember with golden fondness the street party we had that day.

That was the last hurrah for that. I had no wish to become political but the fact is two years later Thatcher came to power and brought her there is no such thing as society philosophy with her. Maybe that sense of togetherness would have gone anyway. She certainly accelerated it.

But there is no point in looking back. There are examples everywhere if you seek them of people working together to make life more colourful. I am a member of an Amateur Theatre company, one of many in this area alone. My daughter goes to Rainbows and I see there the work of the guide and scouting movement. There are countless other examples of good young people and their parents trying to make a better tomorrow. By all means let’s look with fondness on our pasts. But let’s do it without decrying the world we live in now.