No one else cares. Why should I bother?

They are at it again. Nine youths kicking a ball around on the Church drive in the semi-darkness by the Lady Chapel doors. You'd have thought the weather would have put them off. A cold GMT dark early evening. Intermittent rain. High winds. Indeed one of the rare joys of these dark Autumn turning to Winter nights in this almost completely God-forsaken suburb, is that the dark and miserable weather keeps away the endless stream of thoughtless youth who seem to believe that the Church grounds are an appropriate place to congregate and cause nuisance and expensive damage for which, of course, they would not dream of paying. But not, it seems, tonight. No. Rack winds, rage storms, whatever. Apparently these kids are so desperate that the risk of pneumonia is inconsequential.

Why ? Well, it is weeks since the last bother over broken windows and burnt doors. So they probably think its safe to return. The problem is two-fold. On the one hand manners, decency, respect have all gone out the window; these kids believe they have a right to do whatever they please, wherever and whenever they choose. And our daft society has taught them that their 'rights' are paramount, overriding everyone else's. On the other hand the police have no practical means of keeping them in order, wherever they are and (almost) whatever they are doing. They can concentrate resources on one area for a time, but the only effect is to move the nuisance on to another area.

By the criteria the police must use, this can often be represented as 'effective' policing, but it is of course, nothing of the sort. I don't, incidentally, blame the police for this; they are as much the victims of a careless society and an often daft legal system as the rest of us. It is not their fault that so few people can be bothered; that so many folk turn aside and regard trouble as someone else's problem. It is not their fault that the English in general are not willing to pay for police in sufficient numbers to keep order, and politicians are afraid to suggest the idea.

So no. I shall not be calling the police. It ought to be the case that they did not need calling - there ought to be enough of them as a matter of course to patrol the streets and keep an eye on miscreants. Until there are, calling them and accepting their present system is merely conniving at our unhappy public folly. If damage is done, it will be just too bad. Someone has to protest at the ineffectual prevailing system of values and public order. If it is not changed to recover some old-fashioned values, it will bring disaster upon us all.

For make no mistake: if the kids continue to get away scot-free with damage to our Christian church building, they will be after the Temples and Mosques next (places incidentally, which at the moment they would not dare to treat with such little respect as they show the Christian Church!) And if my neighbours continue to sit in their back rooms and turn away from the noises in the street and the spectacle of what these youth do to our Church building, as if it did not matter.... well, they should be in no doubt that the vandals will be in their garden next, wrecking their windows and lawns. They needn't come asking me for sympathy.








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