Week 50.08

                            Tendring Topics….on Line

 

'Manners makyth Man'

 

'Why are people so rude?' asks a somewhat disgruntled lady from Holland-on-Sea in a recent issue of the Coast Gazette.  She is, so she says, 'a mum with a buggy' and has been made to feel like a second-class citizen. 

 

            Older people on their mobility scooters knock into her on the pavement and in some of the larger shops and expect her to get out of their way.  Car drivers won't give way when they should, or to ease traffic congestion.  Drivers in the vicinity of the shops in Clacton's Coppins Road,  (just a few hundred yards from my home!) are particularly guilty of this. It is a spot where there are always cars parked.

 

            No-one wants to help her get the children to school by letting her get past the parked cars. Then, returning in the other direction, other drivers just use their cars as weapons to nudge by her.   She has even been forced to drive on the pavement because one car just wouldn't wait, even though she had the right of way and was halfway along the parked cars.

 

            All this rudeness and bad manners, she says, has occurred in and around Clacton.  She had worked in Colchester for a long time and didn't find the same problems there.  'So maybe Clacton people think it is their right to do just what they feel like'.

 

            She concludes by assuring us that she is not 'just another old person moaning'. She is forty-nine and definitely not old.

 

            Well, I hope that she will live to be old one day.  I am old, and I use one of those mobility scooters of which she complains.  I have to say how friendly, courteous and helpful I have found practically everyone I encounter in our town.  People I see regularly never fail to give me a friendly smile and wave, pedestrians gladly make way when they see me approaching (I don't think it is because they are terrified!).  Motorists almost invariably stop and wave me on when they see me at a pedestrian crossing. They quite often do so when I am waiting to cross the road where there is no crossing.

 

            When I dismount and, usually with the aid of a stick, walk a few yards along a street or into and round a shop or supermarket, I find that I receive similar courtesy and help from fellow-shoppers and shop assistants alike.

 

             I always try to greet people with a friendly smile.  I always apologise if I cause a pedestrian the least inconvenience.  I never forget to say please and thank-you and, where someone thanks me for having made way for them, I always assure them that I was pleased to do so.  If the occasion did arise (which fortunately it hasn't yet) I wouldn't hesitate to say, 'Sorry, that was all my fault'. My experience is that if you want respect you must both earn it and give it in return.  If you want to receive smiles, thanks and sometimes apologies you must be prepared to give them.

 

            About one thing I am in full agreement with the Gazette's exasperated correspondent.  Courtesy and good manners are important.  If we were always courteous toward each other the world would be a happier place and there would be no need to bother with political correctness, courtesy's unattractive distant relative.

 

            There are a couple of lines by Edwardian poet, novelist and essayist Hilaire Belloc that are pertinent.  I quote from memory:

 

Of courtesy, it is much less

Than courage of heart, or holiness.

Yet, as I walk, it seems to me

That the Grace of God is in courtesy.

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Global Warming?  I'm Freezing!

 

            It is surely ironic that the day on which an international conference on global warming began in Poland and a huge demonstration on the subject was held in London, the temperature here (and, I have little doubt, in Poland!) only managed to climb a few degrees above freezing point.

 

            That is why I think that it is better to talk of 'climatic change' than 'global warming'.  Although the whole globe is undoubtedly becoming warmer, it doesn't mean that everywhere on the globe is warming up at the same time or in the same way.  When this issue first received public attention there were undoubtedly many on the Essex holiday coast who eagerly anticipated the prospect of our climate warming up. Surely it must mean that Clacton's somewhat fitful summer weather would be transformed into that of the Costa del Sol?  If so, there was no need to worry about global warming.  'Let's just lie back in our deckchairs and enjoy it!'

 

            The last two summers have taught us that warming can bring the climate of a

tropical rain forest (but with the temperature moderated by thick clouds and strong winds!) rather than that of Mediterranean beaches. As for the winter?   I suspect that when this winter is finally over it will be found that the average temperature will still have been higher than that which we used to consider normal for the time of the year.

 

            Just now, of course, the world-wide financial crisis gives politicians and industrialists who would rather not take the drastic action that is needed to slow down the pace of climate change, a perfect reason to procrastinate. 'Yes, of course we know all about the seriousness of climate change, none better.  But you must be able to see that we first have to deal with this financial crisis, which is not just threatening, but is actually upon us.  Then we'll be better able to cope with the climatic situation'.

 

            It all sounds so reasonable, but climatic change is also actually upon us. Its accelerating progress is far greater than had been anticipated even as recently as five years ago. A spokesman for the Green Party said on tv this (Friday 5^th December) morning;  'Using the financial crisis as a reason for delaying action to combat climate change is like someone about to be run over by a steam-roller worrying about the loss of a five pound note!'

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Funerals; A Taboo Topic?

 

Music at the Crematorium

 

            Few of us care to give much thought to funeral services until the need arises.  However it falls to practically all of us to make the arrangements for the funeral of a relative or friend at some time in our lives.  In his latest Church Newsletter Rev Chris Wood, Minister of Clacton's Christ Church United Reformed Church describes the way in which a new sound system at Weeley Crematorium can lighten one aspect of committal arrangement.  I'm sure that Chris won't mind if I describe the system in his own words:

 

            Basically, the sound system is connected to a central control via the internet, which means that the 'Playlist' for every service is prepared beforehand from instructions provided, and then downloaded to the Crematorium on the day.  The facility equally could be amended at the last minute should the need arise.

 

            The main advantage is that the system removes the need for each family to provide CDs or tapes of their favourite music to be played at the service.  All the attendant has to do is to press a button on the remote control pad and hey presto!  This includes a 'fade' button as well.

 

            In their central library they have access to thousands of items of music, from Classical to Goth (!) and from the most popular to the obscure.  We were even assured that if a family didn't know the name of a tune but could hum it, there would be someone on hand at the end of a telephone to identify it and make it available.

 

            Should there be a family member who has, for instance, sung at a social gathering and it has been recorded on tape or CD, they have a facility to transfer it onto their equipment and to make this available on the day of the funeral. Nothing appeared to be too much trouble.

 

            Finally, I was assured that the organists would still be available at every service, but if only a few people were expected there, and the family wanted hymns sung but weren't sure if they could manage it, then the hymn could be played with a recording that included the voices of a small choir.

 

Here's yet another example of how local facilities are incorporating modern technology for the benefit of the local community.  Brilliant, and thank you!   Chris.

 

More about funerals.

 

            Incidentally, did you know that one doesn't need to be a priest or minister, or to have any other qualification, to officiate at a funeral?  When my father-in-law died my wife Heather, who was responsible for the funeral arrangements, particularly wanted a cousin of hers who was a Methodist Local Preacher and, of course, knew her father well, to conduct the service at the local Crematorium.  He declined, saying that he wouldn't be permitted to do so.

 

            Well, I suppose that had he specifically described it as a Methodist funeral service, the Methodist Church could have objected (though I doubt if they would have under the circumstances) but there could otherwise have been no objection.

 

            Five or six years ago an acquaintance about whom I really knew little except that he had, like me, been a POW in Germany in World War II, asked me if when the time came, I would conduct his funeral service at Weeley crematorium.  He was adamant that he didn't want a Quaker funeral (I suspect that he didn't think that his family would be able to cope with periods of silence) but that he would like me to officiate.

 

            It wasn't the kind of request that I felt able to refuse but I didn't seriously expect I would ever be asked to keep my promise.  However, a year or so later I received a phone call from a local undertaker telling me that he had died and had left a request in his will that I should officiate at his funeral. The relatives also wanted me to do so, so I went ahead.

 

            It wasn't a Quaker funeral.  There were no periods of silence. I don't think though that anything was said that couldn't have been said at a Quaker funeral, or indeed at a funeral held by any other tradition of the universal Christian Church.  I was glad too, that several local Quakers supported me on that occasion. I deeply appreciated that support.

 

            I won't say, as I would about many other things that I have done, 'If I can do it, anyone can!'   It wasn't really quite as easy as that, and I was an experienced public speaker. It is certainly not a responsibility to be undertaken lightly. However, if you're really sure that the departed person, and those closest to them, wouldn't want a priest, minister or someone from the Humanist Society or some similar organisation, officiating at the farewell to their mortal remains, then any friend or relative who is capable and is prepared to do so may undertake this task.

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A more cheerful subject – my photos

 

            If you have accessed this blog via my blogspot  www.ernesthall.blogspot.com  you will have seen some of my photos appearing and disappearing in the right margin of your monitor.  If, on the other hand, you have reached it via my website www.ernesthall.net you will be able to click on 'photos' to view them.

 

  You can also reach them via the link www.flickr.com/photos/ernestbythesea This gives access to all three-hundred-plus of them, all titled, and most of them carrying comments about them and the circumstances to which they relate.

 

            Most are family photos dating from the end of Queen Victoria's reign.  Some are rare archive photos such as glimpses into classrooms in primary schools in the early 1930s, and of the winter when the sea off Clacton's beaches froze!  At least one other is unrepeatable; the beautiful and historic packhorse bridge at Mostar in Bosnia, taken by Heather and myself not long before its destruction in the disastrous civil war.

 

            Take a glance at them.  I think you'll find them interesting.