Towns
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Long Report: Labour of love
The nature of local living in the UK is centred on smallness. It’s a much more intimate, and volatile, setting than in London, let’s say. The pace of life is always a lot slower but it feels sped up by local happenings. However, we’re mistaken if we believe that things change so quickly.
In my experience, a local community stays as a local community. It isn’t moved on so easily, and it constantly exerts its influence. The problems are those who seek to get in-between. These are the trouble makers who cause havoc in any local service or facility that’s available.
The reasons
The targets vary. In times past I’ve seen leisure centres, roadworks companies, and local authority’s targeted. They incite confusion and try to whip up a protest. It’s disruptive and actually anti-democratic, but their ways are so nefarious they’re tricky to track down.
Until I reached moving my research to Reading, in Berkshire, I wasn’t able to make any progress. I still saw – and heard of – the same effects of their covert and perverse activities. It’s not the same as antisocial behaviour. It’s meant to distort and disrupt the local area.
It was in this large town that I began to be able to track the actors that make efforts to interfere all over the place. They’re the sort that paint the town red, if you like, and make it a difficult place to live. They don’t back down and they’re difficult to keep in check.
New builds
A new construction project in a locality brings out these sorts of people. They have beliefs about “new” things and seek to take a fresh perspective on what it means for the area. This is what I was told, and I was informed because it presents an issue for developers.
There’s a theory that such actors also have tactics. I’ve tried to track an issue with rodent infestations. There are indications that rats – alive or dead – are used in their activities. It isn’t clear why, albeit one theory is they play a role in a “Group Chat” style of play.
The long game is working out what the target is. In some localities it will only be journalism that’s of interest since these people tag onto existing professions to find new material to work with. It may be the Channel crossings that loom large, or a new political figure.
Finding them
The idea is they use the local area to harass the local area. There’s a belief residue of antisocial behaviour is able to be utilised for this sort of activity. It’s not fully understood because they can also present an aggressive sort of behaviour. It’s said they take off gypsy tropes, too.
There’s an obvious fact they have to live somewhere in a town or small city, but it’s not as obvious where. I’ve located a few residences before that might of been used as “Dwellings” for these individuals, but because of their transient lifestyle it’s hard to be definitive.
There’s also research which indicates they have symbols or significant interests that represent who they are. Usually it comes across as an obsession and it also involves hoarding. It makes for a difficult life to come across, and a difficult case to have to piece together.
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Empty shops, empty hearts?
I took an underground train to West Brompton station in London, yesterday, and photographed and videoed as I walked through.
It’s an interesting part of London; a small neighbourhood, and a tranquil place to walk and pace yourself on an afternoon out.
I say ‘tranquil’, because there’s also a surprising lack of activity. I say that, also, in view that many of its shop fronts have now been transformed, and look like houses, and not commercial spaces.
These are examples of what is happening – and seen – across the country, and all across our towns and cities.
I do not bemoan the arrival or emergence of phone or vape shops, for example, as these exhibit simplicity that we need. I like them because they are what I can head for in a straightforward way and makes my shopping experience easier, at least.
It’s simple to find a phone shop these days, and to find what you want. It should be the case everywhere, and with everything.
In times past, we have prospered over the simple things in life that brought us income and wealth. It wasn’t someone’s idea that we could ‘sell’ to the world, but staples that we brought in and sent out (sometimes in a stylised way).
It’s our ideas that keep us here, but our trade that gets us places, and this is the truth with footfall. If there is sufficient here to engage the mind, and to open the wallet, it’s sufficient to get us out and about again.
I don’t know if West Brompton or beyond seeks an answer as to its streets lined with houses in former shop units, as it may want that, but I doubt it’s nice to live around if what someone wants is a coffee, or a grocery shop to visit, or even an arcade, or something, to browse around.
We are people who ‘look’, and it beats television, sometimes.
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Save our parks
It’s interesting that we have so many parks.
I can see them all around London, such as at Kensington Gardens, a palatial grounds of space (and lots of grass).
There’s a wonder about it, too. There’s Round Pond, a magnificent body of water that is as ‘round’ as it suggests.
There are also trees aplenty, lining the paths of the park (there’s a coffee kiosk, too).
I’ve seen plenty of people running through it, and walking, too, in groups.
It’s an interesting place to be, and live, if you want.
There’s also an interesting debate about how parks look, in London.
Is it right? Is it looking lovely enough? Is it the right feature – such as a fountain – for a London park?
I don’t doubt these questions occupy the minds of many who live here (they’d occupy me, too).
However, the question isn’t a quibble but it’s a reality that park planners must face, too.
It’s a dilemma – who do we serve, taste or interest? I have no idea (I’ll leave it to the professionals).
There is a way about parks that make them so public. It’s a sort of accessibility, a sort of wonder about them, that makes them nice to be in.
They’re easy for all of us to use, and they’re free. They cost, but access each day is free for us, to use it as we please, too.
Take for instance a picnic, or a walk and talk in the park. This is the stuff we’re made for, surely.
Parks have a long history here (and interest), so let’s keep them, and let’s also stay interested.
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The state of our streets
The country has many byways and highways in it, and you’d expect differences between where you live, and where someone else does.
I’ve been looking keenly at the ‘state’ of our streets for a while now, and it seems that – actually – we have similar if not the ‘same’ places to live as each other.
If it comes to shopping, our tree-lined rows, or the amenities we have that are in walking distance, it’s remarkably similar.
I’ve lived (or stayed) in more than a few places with names you may recognise. These are towns and cities you may have visited before, to meet up with friends, or shop in a mall, or a precinct, somewhere.
The brands that we have are mostly familiar (which is great if we need a Costa latte pick-me-up), and the layouts are reassuringly simple.
I’ve met folks who’ve told me that they appreciate it because it means they can get around easily, and are not confused by a layout that doesn’t make sense.
We’re not all the same when it comes to “needs and greeds”. So, it’s because our town and city centres are so appropriate for us, that we’re able to find our own little corners and use them for an hour or two, on whatever we want.
This is what we get to enjoy as an afternoon out, for ourselves.
It’s a part of our way of life to keep doing this, but it’s also human, too, in that we’d do it, anyway, even if it weren’t already here, for us.
This is how we live, in other words.
It isn’t clear cut how each of us will decide to use our time this weekend, for example.
It’s someone’s pleasure to stay at home and read, or another’s to cycle in a rural area at breakneck speed.
This is all our choice.
I’ve also noticed we’ve made choices in other ways, too, in the sense of staying local and living local.
There are differences of opinion of how things should look, where things should be, etc.
Take a look, by example, at these photos I took this morning;
Picture #1 
Picture #2 I happened to be walking past a line of houses, and saw this load of rubbish around a perfectly ordinary terraced house.
It isn’t clear why it’s there, in the first place, but it’s a fact that it is. It must have been there for a while.
It’s not evidence of carelessness, but a sense of confusion over why things are happening – or not happening – in the way we think they naturally should.
It’s about how I think life should be, and why particular things don’t match up to my perception of life as it should be, here.
I suppose most things do, now, because I have those expectations.
Yet, as most of us interested in the way things are, ask, what about the rest?