I suspect that many people are heartily sick of the phrase ‘Big Society’. Those who feel that it already exists and does not need the Coalition’s stamp of approval will still be putting together their garden fêtes, volunteering in the local Oxfam shop and offering their services as a magistrate. Others will feel that looking after a disabled relative and regularly visiting Mother in her care home is as much as they can contribute. Others still will see it as a cynical PR phrase to justify cuts to public services. Some people, however, will think the politicians in power are on to a winner and that it is not before time that we give national recognition to all the voluntary activity that goes on in the nation, and that according it a grand title will perhaps be a catalyst to increased social commitment and energy.
I have been struck over the summer months by how much community action was visible in just being around in warmer weather. We went to the Wensleydale agricultural show, a stimulating event where the farmers displayed an almost infinite variety of sheep and poultry, alongside a myriad of country produce, pursuits, skills, amusements and, yes, opinions. Woe betide any apostle of anti-hunting who might have wandered in. “Come and get the foxes with the local hunt! ”said the hunt-master in the ring. “It may be illegal but that doesn’t change a thing”. The point is that the show was not just a great day out and an opportunity for the people of Wensleydale to demonstrate their many talents and professional expertise. It was also evidence of how many local people get involved in their local community.
The day before we had visited the Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond, North Yorkshire, the oldest working theatre in the country. It is local volunteers who show visitors round on the hour every hour, who raise funds and who steward the shows. We were staying in a village in Coverdale where the local residents had dipped into their pockets to buy the local pub when it had closed earlier in the year and who, while we were there, had interviewed candidates to manage it under community ownership.
This blog should not be a tale of What I Did On My Holiday. The fact is, though, that all over the United Kingdom this summer there was manifest evidence of the Big Society in fine fettle. It will be the same throughout the autumn and winter. But doesn’t the term ‘Big Society’ elevate and make grandiose the ordinary enthusiasms and human partnerships that keep the hinterland of British life going? It is ‘ad-speak’. What the Big Society really demonstrates is a shared humanity that has always sustained the best of our national life. If it must be decorated with a phrase, let’s just call it the ‘little society’, because it is all about small, local, nurtured, co-operative energies coming together towards a common end. The ‘little society’, without any capital letters, would be a better way to describe it.
Alastair Niven
