Sir, – David Adams (Opinion, December 29th) catalogues a disturbingly bleak sequence of vignettes of social decline in his undisclosed exemplar town.
The implication is that similar scenarios sadly prevail in many communities across the nation. It clearly calls us all to communal, creative arms. Everyone is implicated and affected.
His nadir comment, among many grim observations, must surely be about the “Workless men, self-worth corroded beyond repair”, riven with apathy about all and any adjacent chaos, “unperturbed by the goings-on around them”. Such drift towards a downbeat apathetic, depressive posture bodes ill for all – the jobbing as well as the jobless.
What community can survive such a protracted dose of forlorn bleakness? None.
It behoves us all to actively, voluntarily and energetically contribute to the relief of this sinking mood of pending despair. Conscious creative efforts to alleviate the slide of collective esteem must be forthcoming from all who are fortunate enough to be gainfully engaged, and comfortably positioned. Respectful acknowledgment and proactive, empathic support, without being patronising, is the continuing stark requirement of rescue.
Renewing a “meithealised” template of shared togetherness is a readily available, powerful option of community endeavour, stitching patent need with threads of time/skill currency exchange. It is open to all, demanding little or no money, merely a care and share approach. Thus can a community breathe again some collective relief amid the slide.
It would certainly go some way to re-jig David Adams’s “lament to the slow, agonising death of a recession-hit town” (or city, village or rural community, for that matter). Let’s get “meithealising”. – Yours, etc,