Nasty people

I see another city kid has died from a knife wound, another potential life "cut" short.
A post on Flickr got me wondering about this land and how we must appear to other countries.

Britain is a crowded island developing a litigation culture where even the respected and learned hesitate to give guidance the unruly child.
The papers thrive on negative ideas fuelling the impression that all strangers are to be feared and in so doing further breaking the bonds between adults children and the world around them.
We are too frightened to have any British sense of a good conduct in case it offends other cultures or imported beliefs and in all this we are surprised the kids don't feel valued in a safe cohesive environment.
We are breaking them with disconnection and feeding them with distrust, no wonder they feel the need to protect themselves.

I now live in a smallish town in the south west of England, when I first came here a girl smiled at me in the street and I spend the next few moments checking my clothes and face trying to work out what she was laughing at.

In my birth county “Essix” teenage girls don't just smile at a stranger, they could be an axe murderer or want abduct you, sureley everyone knew that at her age.
It took me a while to work out if you are not using the underground or commuting to the city you may not have developed eye contact avoidance, you may still see “people”, not just obstacles.

I smile now, not the local smile more of a townie reserve, I try but early teachings and stuff.

If you are not part of the solution, are you really part of the problem?

I ( after checking we were in a public place covered by CCTV! obviously) spoke to a teenage skateboarder, wanted to know if the local skate park was used and if I could get some decent shots for Flickr.

Despite the clothes and the small gang of them they were actually pleasantly spoken nice Kids/Youths/Potential adults (hope to God they don't read this) and one phrase he used really struck me. He said they didn't go to the skate park after dark because there were “Nasty” people there. I assumed and I'm pretty sure he meant older youths.

What dug home was the total ignorance I had before speaking to him that;

A. they would be able to speak in more than grunts,

B. he was happy to talk me, intelligently and even mentioned the councils future plans for the skate park,

C. that there is anything valued more “nasty” than a group of disconnected kids hanging around a bus stop.

I didn't do anything about the skate park, being part of the problem is easier.

I would try and get involved but I'm a “single forty something guy in IT” so obviously I'd have some ulterior motive for the interest, nothing to do with the fact that when I skated in the 70's-80's it was the single happiest time of my entire life.

Fuck the papers and the twisted morons who write the headlines.
Smile at someone, it may just stay with them for the next ten years.