Since the new year, I have become increasingly drawn to the concept of community with respect to the town of Denbigh where I live and in the wider sense. Many would stop reading at this point because the subject would be a matter of indifference to them.
I recently read an interesting piece written last year in the Guardian. Written by Rosie Niven, the article contrasts the concept of community of yesteryear with the modern day equivalent. Fifty years ago, the word community almost invariably referred to the place where you lived. Since then, the definition has become a little more flexible often alluding to a common area of interest, values, activities, hopes and fears shared by people irrespective of the place where they live. By implication, it thus follows that people living in Britain today can belong to several different communities be they real or virtual. Communities these days are also less static than their predecessors of fifty years ago.
Local activities are cited as promoting cultural integration. The town of Denbigh where I live has been notably active in this regard in the last couple of years. In a short space of time, my home town has re-introduced a town carnival which for many years had faded away. A variety of local communities have also been responsible for the introduction of a car boot sale, a St. David's Day festival and a midsummer festival to name but a few. All these events point strongly to a town which has decided to get back to basics. Enough local people have got together in a variety of separate communities to generate these projects with the shared intention of regenerating the concept of local people coming together to engage in meaningful community activity.
What has really warmed my heart about this is the obvious intention to do so without involvement of local government. This reaffirms the original modus operandi of the local community - people doing it for themselves. All too often in modern Britain, local government has become a bloated organisation too far detached from the real issues facing the people over whom they exert jurisidction. In truth, history informs us that local government had little to do with community activities such as those referred to. One of the factors which has driven the growth of local government is a greater propensity to depend upon it. Obviously there are those occasions where such dependency is justified if only for the sake of the amount we pay in council tax. Equally, our society has tended to become somewhat lazy expecting local government to provide the solutions in instances where we might have done more for ourselves. It is a rare sight where I live to see someone picking up litter in the vicinity of where they live and yet the majority of us are quite capable. It is also rare to see anyone sweeping the mess off a pavement yet most of us are more than capable.
Citing the examples of litter picking and sweeping up, I am really alluding to the sense of civic pride which was ubiquitous when I was growing up in the early 1970s. It is far less obvious now so I wonder whether my local town is on the verge of rediscovering it. Given that they have voluntarily reignited the sorts of event so much beloved of our forebears, does it follow that they will soon start to assume similar levels of civic pride? I certainly hope so and have every reason to remain optimistic. Rural towns such as this are dependent on a sense of community pride to remain vibrant.
Like many similar former market towns, Denbigh has seen it's high street eroded by a combination of factors which continue to impact so negatively the length and breadth of the land. More people now work outside the locality. More people now have access to a car and the greater access which this affords them. More local councils have sanctioned the introduction of supermarkets on the outskirts of the town which have now lured the consumer generation since the 1960s. All too often, the latter has been devastating for the erstwhile high streets.
In purely economic terms, most markets are subject to the whims of cycles in which peaks and troughs are reached with monotonous regularity. While my local high street may well have reached it's nadir in recent times, there are signs afoot to suggest that the ascent to former glories is now on track. Without the involvement of local people in their respective communities with their shared focus, such a change in fortune would have been unimaginable. For a long time, successive generations have looked longingly at the greener grass of the out of town retail centres. Having feasted on that grass now for many years, it seems as though the oldest truism of them all is finally being realised. The grass is becoming more attractive in our own field as indeed it always was.
In our own field, we know more about the local food we eat. We also get to know with forensic detail the people with whom we share that field, warts and all. Ultimately, we exist within a finely balanced ecosystem in which jobs in our local shops are taken by local people often selling the produce of local farmers and artisans. It is difficult to see what can be so unattractive about that particular flavour of grass.
