According to an article I read last week, there is at least one person who discards his shoes when they become grubby, preferring to buy new ones rather than clean them. I would like to think he is an exception but would not be surprised to discover that there is a whole Facebook Group devoted to the practice. Whatever motivates such behaviour – laziness, obsessive-fashionista-disorder, or the commonplace profligacy for which the human race is renowned – my reaction to it is deep dismay. Invested as I am in a lifestyle that favours sustainability over excessive consumption, I find it increasingly hard to condone what I now define as ‘wanton wastefulness’. Even watching a TV programme last night, about a couple who spent a million quid and a year of their lives building a huge extension to their house, I caught myself tut-tutting and disapproving of the unnecessary lavishness of their project. Yes, the route to parsimony is a steep and slippery slope, down which I am sliding. To be fair, though, I am on the lookout for an escape lane, a bit like those sandpits off the side of steeply descending roads, intended to halt vehicles in case of brake failure. I don’t want to end my life as a disapproving old curmudgeon.
Meanwhile, I continue to find encouragement and justification for my eco-view among a widening circle of friends and acquaintances and, though I am aware that the like-minded do seek each other’s company, I have found support also in the world of business, most recently at Richmond Exhausts and Brakes, the garage up the road. When I noticed a metal rod dangling from the underside of the campervan, I drove it there for a diagnosis. From previous experience, I knew to expect informal yet competent service, in the best old-fashioned tradition of friendly neighbourhood businesses. I am pleased to say I was not disappointed. I ventured into the office, from which Frank runs the outfit without ever moving from his chair. The place looks and smells like 1960, scruffy and stale with cigarette smoke, but the welcome is personal and comforting. The problem was identified as a corroded metal strap, one of a pair that support the fuel tank. Not a difficult engineering challenge, yet a new pair of straps, from the main dealer, was available only with the fuel tank attached and at a cost of £600. “Don’t worry,” said Frank, “Dave will sort something out.” And so he did, by sourcing a pair of straps on eBay for £30. “You buy ‘em, we’ll fit ‘em,” he offered. A satisfactory outcome from a privately owned local enterprise that is, in effect, a community asset.
The sense of community is an important component of societal cohesion – sociology speak for “we all like to belong” – and there is a local not-for-profit Community Interest Company that is engaged on a long-term programme of buying and re-purposing buildings. Its strategy is to retain control of the built environment so as to ensure the locals are not alienated or left out of the picture by profit-motivated developers. The company is concentrating on a stretch of Union Street, where there are several grand but now abandoned theatres, a legacy of its once central role as an entertainment hot spot in the days before TV took over the job. One of the theatres, recently acquired, was opened up for visitors and I went to admire what is left of the ornate interior and to join the conversation about how to bring life back to such a building. Total renovation is not a financially viable option, but re-purposing does not require such rigour. Even so, money will be tight. We live in a poor society, alongside people who feel rich enough to throw their shoes away.
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