David Neita - poet
When Mic Christmas asked whether
I would be a speaker at a Preston Rotary it made me reflect upon the past 30 or
so years because it was about that time that I last came here to speak! How bad
must I have been last time for it to have taken so long to be invited back!!!“Talk about what, Mic? I asked. “Well that’s up to you!” he said ….and so it is. However when I happened to see that my listing was as a Herald Express Columnist and that sharpened my mind somewhat. Mic also phoned last night and said “Oh by the way it is a ladies night!” One script immediately chucked in the bin!
Had I not noticed the Herald Express listing I might have rambled on about the history of Harbour Sports since many of you will know that after thirty-five years Harbour Sports has slipped into history. It was an adventure but then all good things must come to pass……Where else would you get a job being paid to dunk pretty girls dressed in rubber up and down in cold water!! Or driving topless Swedish girls around in a speed boat!! Of course it wasn’t all like that – but we taught sailing, windsurfing, ran yacht charter, speedboat rides and of course the famous Aqua Sausage! Here is something to think about at Aqua Sausage time. Some bright spark thought that this was something we didn’t need and so we had all the Torbay councillors at a meeting debating the future of an inflatable toy on a sandy beach in Paignton!
I might also have spoken about my life at South Devon College where I lecture on a part time basis plus developing projects and partnerships. One of the interesting things that I do at the College is running a one evening a week thirteen session course which is a foundation for those who might want to follow a career in counselling, mentoring and communication. It is life changing experience for students who will learn to see the world in a very different way. Let me give you an example…WATER GLASS (get them to think about at least ten different uses for a water glass). Point – changed thinking.
I might perhaps offering a few details of my work as a personal mentor for folk leading small and medium size entrepreneurial companies. This is I have to say, a growing aspect of modern life IN AN ANXIETY generating world! Being at the sharp end of a small company can be a lonely experience! We all seek that safe lap to sit upon whilst quietly sucking a thumb!!
Another theme might have been my interest in the place of theology in a secular world and the attractiveness of religious fundamentalism today as a political tool…………………………
But I’m not!!
Tonight will be about something that is near and dear to me and the reason for me popping up as a columnist. In passing I am also a blogger and for those that don’t know a blog is really a column in cyberspace or on the Internet if you like!
For those of you who read my rambling rhetoric in the Herald Express will know that my ‘thing’ is about community cohesion and concentrating on the positive rather than the negative! Usually, when I write, I attempt to end with a simple “Keep the smile!” phrase. You see a smile can offer light in a sea of darkness and to be quite honest is a much better aspect than walking around with a face that appears to have been slapped with a kipper!
We live I think that you will agree, in difficult times. Way back in 2003 I scribbled a note on the BBC Money Box website about the danger of self-certification mortgages. It seemed to me that after the deregulation of the banks and the demutualisation of the building societies we were cruising in dangerous waters socially. We had opened the sweet shop but didn’t ask the gatekeepers not to eat all the sweets!
When the financial crash came in 2007 we all looked in horror at the American sub-prime mortgage market and then went white when folk like Northern Rock fell over. But why were we surprised? Certainly those at the sharp end who had eaten all the sweets seemed to quietly drift clear of the crash!
I think that it might have been Ian Hisplop who suggested that Sir, now Mr, Fred Goodwin should have been paid his payoff in £1 coins on the back of a flatbed truck parked in Toxteth!
There was a half-hearted attempt seek responsibility from the gatekeepers and I hear the endless rhetoric but it seems to me that those with in charge of the ‘sweet shop’ still appear to be dipping in quite happily.
Someone said a little while ago that “Unless you dress a few of the irresponsible gatekeepers in an orange jump suit and accommodate them in a locked 6 x 4 room with a man with a fang tattoo called Marvin then little will change!!”………………………..
The thing is that when a financial squeeze comes the most vulnerable take the pain first. Sometimes being amongst the ‘most vulnerable’ can of course be a self-inflicted wound as it was too often with self-certification mortgages. Why? Let me explain.
In the self-certification age the folk taking out an often too expensive mortgage simply asked how much they had to earn in order to get the purchase price (and more since we then lived in the time of the 125% mortgage!!). The figure was given which could be much more than they were actually earning – but who was checking. No one! Why? Simply because for the BONUS EARNING agent and mortgage lender it really didn’t matter! House prices were rising on a daily basis and folk were living on credit. Homes could be repossessed and the house sold on to cover the short fall, perhaps even at a profit. But when the fiscal slump lumbered over the horizon the gap between the wet and the dry made eyes water! Night night Northern Rock and welcome to the trillions of government lending to hold the rickety financial system together. Those who had made the profit from all this rode off into the sunset leaving behind them broken dreams and decimated pension funds.
I have a friend (that may come as a surprise to some of you!) called David Neita and he is a poet. You may know of him or listened to him reading his socially challenging messages! I’d like to read a few lines of a poem called Mind the Gap.
Mind the Gap between the rich and the poor
If nothing is done it will extend even more
The rich live on Excess Island in the middle of Deprived Sea
when the wealth of the world is enough to satisfy everybody
If wealth is distributed, then wealth will increase
If there is no social justice there can be no peace.
You would have needed to have spent the past six months alone in a darkened room not to have been aware of the draconian cuts to local council budgets! Here in Torbay our elected mayor has just announced £22M in cuts and many groups supporting the most vulnerable members of our society have been hit very badly.
It simply isn’t good enough to look around and say “Well that’s not my problem!” In the words of David Neita “If there is no social justice there can be no peace.”
We live, as I have said, in challenging times and it is for all of us to reach out. Pay attention to what is being said and done. Listen to the words and check whether the outcome or likely outcome matches the rhetoric! Take care not to join in the demonization of those in need simply as parasites and wasters! Stigmatisation is a dangerous game to play…………..
Local councillors and members of parliament have many reasons for seeking election. Whether you bothered to vote or not is a matter for your own conscience, but this is not the time for sitting back with a shrug of the shoulders. Engage with our elected political leaders and see whether you can help shape the future. The stability of our community requires engagement from all of. That’s you and that’s me!!!
I would like to leave you with a few words from Albert Einstein, who has a clever chap and seemed to know a thing or two……
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”
……………………………………There you go!! But whatever you do KEEP THE SMILE!
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