The Past, the Present and Whatever Comes Next

Just before sitting down to write this blog on Friday evening, I stood outside for a few minutes - suitably protected against the cold - and took in the atmosphere.  There were at least three bonfires going on in the adjacent streets.  One was merely glowing above the rooftops, while two others were regularly accompanied by the flashes and bangs of fireworks and occasional brightly coloured displays in the night sky.  Who knows whether this might be the last time I can absorb first-hand these doings, what new regulations might be introduced, what financial constraints the nearby families might suffer, between now and a year hence?  Or, indeed, will I be in a fit state to perform such an act of witness?  

The backdrop for this moment of observation was the small cluster of back-to-back houses constructed around the turn of the twentieth century to house those involved in the developing coal mining industry of the Dearne valley, where I now reside.  In daylight these backways display a rich variety of material and colour, but at night the street lights pick out little more than the pointed façades of gable ends, each adorned by the twin black rectangles of bedroom windows.

It was the night to celebrate, if that's the right word, a treasonous attempt to blow up king and parliament some 416 years ago.  Fortunately the preparations were detected the previous night, the constitution preserved and the malefactors duly rounded up and executed in the most horrific manner that was, in those days, considered appropriate for their crimes.

This occasion is as much an annual part of our national culture today as it was when enshrined in law until 1859.  This year, however, it carries an additional significance, for its calendar appointment coincides with the COP26 event in Glasgow and, while the contribution of one night's national firework celebration to global warming will be minuscule, nevertheless there will be some effect, as there is from every incidence of consumption of fossil fuels.

But for me, standing by my back door just now, there is another historic link to COP26, as I've already mentioned.   The purpose that the town was expanded in this direction a century or so ago was coal.  While the occupier of this particular house in 1939 was a shop assistant, many of his neighbours were miners and I have no doubt that miners would have lived here, too, either earlier or later: possibly both.

So much for the general, the macro-connections.  What about the personal, the micro-involvement in this climate crisis.  Certainly, I can do nothing about the past.  If I had avoided moving here on the basis of the original purpose for building the house, but had instead gone somewhere else, it wouldn't make one jot of difference to the present situation.  Nor can any regrets about coal fires that kept me warm in past years.

I don't intend holding my own personal conference, either.  There would be little point - even if I had the resources of knowledge and information - in taking days, perhaps weeks, to examine every aspect of my daily life, analysing it in fine detail to compile a revised way of life to step into and abandon all I'm doing at present.  Many of the changes that such an examination might come up with will only be possible at some time in the future, and depend on local or national changes that won't happen for many years, while most of my life wouldn't change at all.

All I can do, I believe, is to be aware of what is implied in each step of my life that I can change.  When I realise that there is a greener option to something I'm doing or buying, I shall endeavour to make a change.  Meanwhile, my philosophy reflects whoever it was who said, "Worry is like a rocking chair - it gives your body something do to, but doesn't get you anywhere."