There are many fond memories of Wisbech shared on Facebook. People remember the taste of fish and chips, the fragrance of a bakery, and convivial nights spent in pubs long since demolished. I am old enough, however, to remember the darker side of Britain in the second half of the 20th century - polio, diptheria, insanitary slum housing, genuine poverty (as opposed to the relative poverty of today), overt and pernicious racism and and very little social mobility.
What genuinely saddens many people of my age is the decline in behaviour of certain sections of society, particularly some younger people. My teaching career lasted from 1969 to 2012, and so I can make a judgment of sorts about behaviour in the classroom. It's not that simple, though.By the time I retired I was an Assistant Head Teacher, with a certain amount of 'clout'. It also didn't hurt that I had taught the parents of many youngsters in my classes. Had behaviour worsened? I have to answer 'no', but again with a qualification. What had declined, without doubt, was the support teachers received from a vigorous minority of parents. They tended to have had a negative experience of schools themselves, and so they waged war on everything the school stood for, especially when it came to disciplining their children.
Were these, then, similar to the parents of youngsters who carried out a truly awful piece of vandalism in Wisbech this week? An example of serendipity attached to the Covid-19 pandemic was that a Russian horticulturist and artist, Natalya Shlyapina, had to extend her visit to the town due to lockdown. She didn't waste her time, and produced several stunning sculptural arrangements woven from willow. One such was a beautiful butterfly created for the community orchard in Wisbech Park.
Her enthusiasm and skill was certainly matched by the energy and malice of a group of people who took delight in destroying it. It is safe to assume that they were teenagers, and that they were male. Why make that assumption? Because a group of lads out on their bikes of an evening have been found vandalising other items created by decent people. This is the result of their efforts on this occasion.
Is there any point in blaming anyone apart from the perpetrators for this behaviour? Probably not. Blame won't get the sculpture rebuilt, nor will it remove the morons from the streets. Looking for culprits does, however, albeit in a negative way allow us to rant and rage like King Lear:
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head!
The parents of the Wisbech vandals will be neither the first nor the last to lose control over their children, but there will a sad similarity between them. There will be no shortage of consumer goods in the home. There will be smartphones, large TV sets and satellite dishes. What there will NOT be is a coherent family group, with a father and a mother taking equal responsibility for parenting.
What about the police? The modern UK police force has NOT been stripped of numbers, despite what some people would have you believe. The graphic below is a screenshot of a Freedom Of Information request.
What the UK police force HAS been stripped of is a leadership determined to stick to time-honoured principles, those of solving crime and catching villains. Top police officers have been infected with the Common Purpose virus, which debilitates them and makes them more eager to dance to latest social justice tunes - gay rights and the pernicious BLM agenda - than to be bothered with criminal justice. The police in Wisbech will front up if there has been a murder or a serious RTA. Otherwise, they have little interest in a community under attack from anti social behaviour.
I have lived in Wisbech since the 1990s and I have to be honest and say that I cannot remember a time when the local council was a shining example of public responsibility and enlightened civic leadership. It is currently dominated by individuals who have chosen to become professional politicians - a suitable and necessary requirement for MPs perhaps, but at a very local level? I would much prefer that our town was being led by people with proven professional qualifications in industry, commerce or public service. Men and women who could bring their experience of 'the real world' to the relatively small-scale operation of running a town council.
What do we actually have, and how does this impinge on the original matter of vandalism? We have a town council led by people with no other visible means of support than an income from local government allowances and expenses. It is a matter of public record that they are indifferent to the effects of anti-social behaviour. They have actively opposed any attempts to diminish the scourge of public drinking and the consequent fouling of open spaces in the town. Why then, should they be bothered by a few teenagers with room-temperature IQ, smashing up something beautiful? No reason at all. No reason to demand better from the local police force. No reason to disturb the bizarre Status Quo in Wisbech, which results in them being re-elected time after time after time, despite their lack of interest in the town or its problems.
Just to end on a more positive note, here is a photo of Natalya Shlyapina, whose work was recently trashed by some of Wisbech's finest.
