Platform For A New Energy.

My column in the Herald Express 23rd December 2014

I’ve not looked yet but I rather suspect that the film Love Actually will pop up at least once over the Christmas period. Love Actually and another Richard Curtis film, Notting Hill, always make me smile. Both have quite serious themes but also have a lightness that lifts my battered spirit. What really does it for me is the last scene in Love Actually that ends with a huge storyboard of people being united at an airport because it seems to capture the essence of Christmas; that wonderful joy of reunited friends and family coming home for Christmas.

I love Christmas and always have. That statement may be slightly overegging the truth because sometimes things can become a little bumpy as the reality of life too often makes us less than happy. Christmas Day for me has always started with the first church service which I suppose is the nature of the day. It is an acknowledgement of the Christmas message for the Christian Faith, which is the birth of Jesus. But the winter celebration itself of course predates Christianity and emphasises the long dark night coupled with very short cold days. A time when folk gathered in the icy semidarkness around a fire as the night world outside shivered.

There was a time when that first Christmas Day service was a collective family event shared with the community. In these unusual and too often confusing times the need for family and community is huge. Christmas traditionally is a time for heading home, for sharing, for caring and perhaps capturing a little of the seasonal magic. Sadly for too many these days, Christmas will not be a time for family or friends. For those struggling to put food on the table or indeed to find food at all the wall to wall commercial invitations to feast will simply bring pain. Too often that pain will also be a place of intense loneliness. In the helter-skelter run up to Christmas Day it is important to remember that we are a community which is hopefully inclusive.  

Keeping all that in mind I do love the idea of a friendly Santa Claus travelling the world bringing a sparkle into lives and occasionally granting special needs rather than simply satisfying superficial wants.

This Christmas I will look to the heavens in the hope of catching sight of that famous speeding sled pulled by celestial reindeer high above Torbay. During the past year I have found myself wishing for a few special Torbay ‘presents’ and perhaps this Christmas some of Santa’s sparkling fairy dust will fall from the sleigh like golden snow settling on those dreams.

A light covering of Santa’s golden fairy dust on Oldway Mansion would be wonderful. Seeing that now exhausted building suddenly spring into life as bright lights shine from the windows, excited people walk the beautiful halls and atmospheric gardens, newlyweds showering rose petals on the terrace and a community energised by the reawakening. To bring that iconic building back to life will send a tingle through the whole of Torbay.

That magical dust might also fall lightly on the Parkfield Youth Centre where beleaguered youth workers suddenly find that their prayers have been answered as endless streams of young people ride the BMX track, clamber up the stunning climbing wall, skate endlessly on the ramps, swing from the trees, play games in the sports hall, make music in the garden and bring a smile to the most battered faces. This wonderful £4.8 million pound facility has lost its way and seems in the words of a young local accountant “To be a waste of a fab opportunity” as the consequence of funding cuts cast a sad shadow over the estate. Will Santa listen?

Hopefully a few flakes from that golden shower might flutter over Torquay Pavilion and Cary Green bringing hope for an amicable future that will capture the magic of the past in a union with a vibrant future. Perhaps part of a new harmony will be a change from the collective mayhem of the drunken night-time madness in the harbour area into a place that generates a new energy of hope.

But most of all I pray that the energy of Christmas will bring joy to the whole community and lift the spirit of us all. In my last article I wrote about developing a ‘White Monday’ for the good of all rather than the demonic ‘Black Friday’ evidenced by greedy grabbing. Perhaps Christmas can be a platform for a new energy working for the good of the community as we rocket toward a more meaningful future!

Keep the smile.