Our thinking

Care-mongering

20 March, 2020

It’s an oft-cited phenomenon that British people only talk to each other when things go wrong. 

It might be the tube delay that leads to a collective grumble, or a public toilet that won’t flush. And amidst the bad news this week, we’ve seen a host of examples of communities looking out for each other in dark times. 

A Cornish copywriter has created a simple postcard for people to offer help to vulnerable neighbours who may be self-isolating – because finding the right words to reach out can be difficult. Virtual choirs have sprung up for participants to sing from their sofas. And closer to home (literally), one of our team members had a bunch of daffodils and a toilet roll left outside his door by an upstairs neighbour, with a note offering help if he needed it. And another team member’s community group has put flyers through doors with green on one side and red on the other – the idea is you put the green side in your window to show you’re fine, and flip to red if you need some help.  

Of course, these heart-warming stories don’t negate the reality of the virus – or the unhappy truth that some neighbourhoods have seen spikes in distrust, xenophobia and isolation as a result of it. But they do pose an important question. Why, when we all have so much to gain from connecting with our communities, did it take a pandemic to make us reach out?