Julia McLean reflects on “The Big Society” speech by British Prime Minister David Cameron and says it’s time to reawaken of community — being a good neighbour will help end the recession.
10 Downing St.
David Cameron, Britain’s newest Prime Minister, has posited “The Big Society” as his policy. This is an extract from his speech in which he explains what he means:
It’s about liberation – the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street. And this is such a powerful idea for blindingly obvious reasons. For years, there was the basic assumption at the heart of government that the way to improve things in society was to micromanage from the centre, from Westminster. But this just doesn’t work. We’ve got the biggest budget deficit in the G20.…. The Big Society is about a huge culture change, where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace, don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.
Canadians already knew this, years ago. And so did Australians. “Stop whinging you Pommies” they would say to immigrant Brits. “Get on with it.”
Australia, like Canada and America, is a real DIY societies. They were those immigrants who believed that God helps those who help themselves. The protestant work ethic served them well, for no cavalry was going to ride to the rescue. “True Grit” was getting on with it in whatever circumstances.
British Prime Minister David Cameron
In Canada, when my husband was growing up, his dad built a garage for them to live in while he dug out the foundations of their future home. Then they moved into the basement while he built the house above them.
Even in the late 60s and early 70s, when I was living in Canada, I worked with young teachers in their 20s, who earned less than I did, but who managed to build themselves a swimming pool in their back garden. Many people had a second home that they built in the bush somewhere up north – where the dad would work over the years to provide great outdoors holidays for the kids.
Some people built canoes, some sail boats. These were not upper-income people, but ordinary folk who still behaved like pioneers to a certain extent. They managed because they all helped each other out.
Julia's father-in-law starting to build his house.
My father-in-law built his house just at the end of the Depression. The neighbours all helped out. One was an electrician, another a plumber, another a roofer. They swapped tools, know-how and craftsmanship. They built modest little houses, on huge lots, on the outskirts of Toronto in Willowdale, where their back gardens were the Wild wood and the Don Valley, and they could cycle up to Lake Simcoe.
The children played cowboys and Indians, and camped out and made their own bows and arrows and chaps out of cardboard. The women often knitted, crocheted or made clothes. Many a rag rug was made out of old clothes, and many beautiful quilts resulted from their work, especially on the Mennonite or Amish farms. They exchanged jam and cake recipes, salted their meat and cabbage, and learnt to make spaghetti and meatballs from their Italian neighbours.
My father-in-law also built his own television set in the early 40s, and all the neighbourhood kids would come around to watch. It had a round porthole screen like a dishwasher!
Britain, like most of Europe, has become very socialist, which means everyone depends on the government to solve their problems. Self-help is not the order of the day. My brother-in-law (a Brit) was once amused that I had bothered to make egg cups in a pottery class. I needed them, had paid for the course, and didn’t have much extra money so I made them just as I made my husband a suit when we were first married (with lots of help from Dressmakers’ Supply, that fabulous store in Toronto which has now disappeared!).
Our first house was a dilapidated 1850s house in Cabbagetown (but we always said we lived in Lower Rosedale). It took us 18 months to renovate it while we lived there with the cockroaches and the local drunks. In addition, we were fighting off the developers who wanted to raze most of Cabbagetown in favour of high-rise apartments. All of the residents of our street and many other streets joined together to stage a sit-in in Mayor Crombie’s office, at the same time as another crowd sat in front of the developer’s hoardings to prevent them going in with the bulldozers.
This was a Big Society at work in the 1970s.
We wanted to preserve the beautiful old Edwardian houses so that Toronto retained some character. Plus, it should not be forgotten that our particular street had a beer store at one end and a liquor store at the other, so there was no way we wanted those replaced by high rises and convenience stores!
When I was back in Canada, some five years ago, I was impressed by the number of volunteers who were cleaning up the sides of the highways which passed through their districts. They didn’t wait for the local councils to decide how to divide up the responsibility for this and then charge more on the local taxes. They just got on with it. I had always been impressed by how clean the Toronto subway was and that if you were inclined to drop a candy wrapping, someone would pick it up and likely tap you on the shoulder to say, “I’m sorry, I think you dropped this.”
I have tried this in London. A woman, when she had eaten her apple, put the core over her shoulder on the window sill of the subway. I followed her out with the core in my fingers and said, “I think you forgot this on the train.” I could have got a mouthful of abuse or a “punch up the throat”, but I think she was too astonished.
There are still too many towns in Britain where it is difficult to make friends. It used to be the habit that when you saw someone new moving into the neighbourhood, you would go around at four o’clock and offer them a cup of tea. We used to visit neighbours in hospital, keep an eye on their homes, sometimes house-sit, Gran-sit or dog-sit. In some areas of Britain, people are more reticent or don’t want to be nose,y so there are quite a few older people and young mothers who are alone for too much time. The churches and chapels have lost their grip, and too many wives are working so have little time for idle gossip. It’s up to Social Services to fill the gap.
The corkscrew – proof positive that the Big Society is alive and well!
However, I must tell David Cameron that the Big Society is alive and well in my bit of London. I have just been back to re-paint my old house. While visiting some friends outside London, I realised I had forgotten my work jeans and towels. Our friends were able to help out. When we arrived at the old house, the neighbours asked us in for a few jars of wine to catch up on old times and, before they lent us dishes and saucepans, invited us to eat with them that evening.
We borrowed sleeping bags, pillows and duvets too and happily camped out in our old home. Another neighbour lent us a step ladder and the builder down the road lent us extension ladder. One man jet-washed our patio and more importantly, lent us a corkscrew so that we could slake our thirst with wine at the end of a hard day’s painting!
An Afterthought on The Big Society
In France, the last Tuesday in May is designated as la Fete des Bons Voisins — Good Neighbours’ Day (can be held up to 4th June)when people are supposed to get together on their street or in their building for a drink or a meal.
The ‘fete’ was inaugurated in 2008 in Lille in order to promote social cohesiveness, and was apparently heavily promoted by the big supermarkets (according to this site which I found by Googling Fete des Bons Voisins).
An interesting article on the site (all in French) is very much against government-backed initiatives sponsored by Monoprix (a big supermarket chain), Heineken, Uncle Ben’s, Pizza Hut or any other capitalist institution, especially given that the aims of the ‘Fete’ are to encourage social peace, positive values, neighbourhood solidarity, and family unity; in other words” to keep the masses in their place with “Bread and Circuses’ as in Roman times.
Is this what Cameron meant by The Big Society?
Photo Credits
1. 10 Downing Street
2. David Cameron
3. My father in law starting to build his house
4. The corkscrew – proof positive that the Big Society is alive and well!
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