I have often felt it is a shame that there is a lack of community spirit in our neighbourhood. In the modern age, we don’t tend to know our neighbours, apart from the odd hello as we dash into our cars to drive over to the part of the city. In the ‘good old days’ kids could play in the road without having to dodge speeding vans every 2 minutes. In the good old days, friendly neighbours would help you out if you ran out of milk. Nowadays it’s impossible to run out of anything, because you can always drive to a 24 hour supermarket down the road. In an age of ultra mobility and convenience, neighbours no longer have the same function they used to. It’s much easier to lead our own lives, and driving around in cars doesn’t help much – insulated by glass and metal its much easier to feel in our own world.
The Queen’s jubilee was a rare opportunity to revive this old community spirit. Our street was temporarily closed to traffic, people were even asked to move their cars off the street, so the kids could play football. (although this proved rather difficult – there are so many cars parked on the street, it is hard to get everyone to comply)
It was wonderful other people had organised this civic initiative, which I had always thought would be a good idea and we needed more of. Needless to say, I missed the street party and celebrated the Queens’ Jubilee by going for a solo recovery ride in the rain. Meeting the neighbours and promoting community spirit is a noble idea. But, if my training plan says two hour recovery in the rain, then civic virtue and community spirit has to take a back seat. I’m sure the Queen would appreciate a slow two hour training ride. It was probably slightly more interesting to watch than 1,000 boats doing 4 knots an hour in the rain. And whatever the Queen thinks, training is training no matter how many years she has been on the throne. I did half promise to participate in a street party, should the Queen make it to 70. But, I fear it was one of those promises you somehow don’t take too seriously.
the joy of safe cycling
Anyway, even if I didn’t participate, I at least got great joy to see the street temporarily closed to traffic. Kids cycling up and down the street, playing football. The wonderful old days, even the rain and dark weather tried to make the scene black and white for added 1950s effect. We just needed a jolly milkman to come along in his horse and cart and it would have been the perfect village scene.
The interesting thing was that as soon as the street was closed to traffic – how many young kids with bikes suddenly appeared. I never see kids with bikes (apart from the occasional teenager, usually cycling on the pavement)
1953 was a very different age, the bicycle was still a very popular form of transport. Petrol was rationed, and few could afford the car. It was the ‘golden age’ of British cycling. Without blackberries, ipads and the necessity of driving kids to every event – people had time to spend all day cycling. Jam sandwiches, tea and a good old fashioned 100 miles – even if it did take 8 hours. Nowadays we have every convenience to save time, yet ironically no one seems to have the same time we used to. I’m not quite sure how this works. But, I can’t say I want to go back to beating the carpets and using a mangler to dry my clothes.
Of course the world has progressed, we my have traffic jams, pollution and increased stressful lives – but look at the quality of the bikes these days. For £1,000 you can get a bike undreamt of in the 1950s. Out have gone 20Kg, chunky two speed bikes, in place we have 20 speed carbon fibre look alikes, off the peg (i.e. assembly line in Taiwan). Our kids may not be able to cycle safely in the street, but at least they have a better quality bike to keep locked in the shed. Just make sure you also get a state of the art lock – it’s a long time since the age of leaving your house unlocked.
Of course, we could develop a society where pedestrians and cyclists had priority on these residential roads. The best of the 1950s plus the best of the twenty first century. But, I fear this would all be rather inconvenient and it would mean we have to speak to all those neighbours we didn’t go and meet at the street party.
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It makes me cringe to see how kids just leave their bikes laying on the road, or dropped on the pavement.
When I was a kid you were very lucky to have a bike and took care of it ,because you valued it. And you would never think of dropping it, but would prop it up against a wall.
Now everything comes too easily to children and they don’t value what they have.