From 22/8/14 – “Harbour delights…”

 

I’ve said before how much I love walking around Ramsgate Harbour. I find it both very relaxing and exciting, there is always something going on!  Since we returned from holiday in Dorset I’ve seen some interesting things, and enjoyed one marvellous moment of innocent expression which reminded me that not everything is spoiled in Thanet yet…

 Recently the harbour played host to the UK Border Force vessel ‘HMC Vigilant’. It was fantastic seeing a larger boat in the harbour and she was attracting a lot of attention from interested passers-by (including me!).  I was interested to read that, despite the militaristic style of Vigilant, the crew are not routinely armed and the vessel has no fixed armaments. It must take especially brave crews to chase criminals at sea unarmed.

I was also interested to see a sailor sculling his dinghy with a single oar over the transom. He made it look easy and seemed very comfortable standing in his boat.  I don’t think it would have been so stable if I had been paddling.

Thanet is definitely a hard place to live. Years of high unemployment, low expectations and social deprivation are, in my opinion, taking their toll on the friendliness of the population. It seems that each generation becomes harsher than its predecessor and I worry about how low things will sink.

Based on some conversations I have had with local Law Enforcement and other public bodies, I don’t think that government (national or local) has the willingness to take the actions that would be needed to remedy the problems of casual aggression and selfishness that I encounter in the towns and on the roads – indeed, the Police view is that we should be ‘tolerant’ of small crimes rather that enforce the relevant laws.

But… I saw today a small sign that things don’t have to be like that: I saw a child’s chalk writing on the edge of a pathway which reminded me that innocence is our natural state.

Somewhere along the way our society is corrupting that, and I would cheer our civic leaders if they could find ways to help our next generations to hold onto some of the natural innocence they held as children… for all of our sakes.