Liverpool’s Princes Park Has Friends
The Friends of Princes Park is amongst an encouraging number of similar groups who are demanding that our green space be nurtured. Liverpool has a historical legacy of wonderful parks; and now its citizens are insisting more voluably that these are fit for the twenty first century city.
Today’s Liverpool Daily Post supplement has a long article by Peter Elson on the work of the Friends of Princes Park. The Friends have resurrected themselves after a fallow decade or three, and are making the same case for attention to their treasured space as are other groups in and around Liverpool. All power to Jean Grant, the Chair and leader of the developments! This is a park in Liverpol 8, adjacent to some of the least advantaged communities in the city. It needs nurturing.
Promising developments
There’s talk of involving local schools and of linking Hope Street to Sefton Park… a long discussed but so far not actioned development (but a route some of us take by way of a constitutional when time permits). There is an encouraging acknowledgement of the part the Park can play in sustaining social inclusion, health and an understanding of the history of our city.
Where’s the support?
One possible snag in all this however seems to be the continuing reluctance by the City Council to support, quietly and constructively, the citizens who care about this fabulous amenity. There are encouraging noises from that direction now – but the track record often isn’t good. Here’s an opportunity for the Council to play what (in my view) is its proper role…
Councils clearly have a formal duty to balance competing demands for support by citizens around the city; but they could also become facilitators, socially, financially and strategically of the people who want to see things improve. Now, that would be a new way to do things.
Big Science, Technology And The New Localism
Big Science is a central part of the U.K. economy. The Knowledge Economy, with science and technology as the tangible drivers, is critical to economic success. But for many involved in regeneration Big Science remains a mystery, especially at the level of the ‘new localism’. This paper offers real examples of regeneration strategies, science policy and how science has synergy with, and impact on, economies at regional and local level.
The Golden Triangle and the Holy Grail of the Triple Helix…….
Big Science, Technology and the New Localism
Hilary Burrage
[This is a longer version of the CLES Local Work: Voice paper of February 2006, entitled Knowledge Economies and Big Science: A challenge for governance]
Knowledge-Led Regeneration, Regions, Sub-Regions & City Regions and Science Policy.
Modern science is massive. That’s why it’s often referred to as Big Science. The costs (and sometimes the rewards), the numbers of people involved, the management and resource levels and the skills required – all are very, very high. And yet… to most of us, science remains effectively invisible.
Away from the public eye
The invisibility of science is curious; it probably arises from a number of different factors:
· Big Science, like (say) public motorways, is paid for by money from very high up the funding chain. Decisions on funding are made at national (and international) level by people of whom almost no-one outside their particular sphere of influence has heard. But unlike motorways, which we can at least see, we rarely encounter Big Science directly in our daily lives. It therefore remains off our radar.
· Most of us know very little about what science is ‘for’ and how it works. The numbers of school children studying science in their later, elective years is still falling, as are numbers of degree students. We are not therefore conscious of the ways in which science gives rise to things with which we are familiar, from shampoo to plastics to machines.
· Whilst information technology and health are of interest to many people, they do not see these matters as ‘scientific’. (Nor, incidentally, do many practitioners in the health and IT fields themselves see this connection very clearly.)
· Whether science and science-related practitioners see themselves as having a linked core interest or not, they nonetheless usually believe that their work has little or nothing to do with the wider worlds of public involvement and politics. There may be issues arising from science and technology (which I shall refer to from now on as SciTech) for others to address around economics or ethics, but what happens in the labs is the main concern – and this is observed by very few.
· Science is likewise not a vote-catcher. It is unusual for the electorate to invest much time and energy pursuing issues around this theme; which means that in general neither the media nor politicians spend much time considering it either.
Returning then to the comparison with motorways, both may be very expensive, but Big Science is almost always off limits for the public at large – it is often located within universities or on special campuses of some sort, very much less visible than a large road.
Does Big Science need to be visible?
But why should invisibility matter? After all, we may well not think about science very much, but every region of the United Kingdom has its own science and technology parks, where scientists and technologists rub shoulders with business and commercial people. These parks may not be in our thoughts a great deal, but they create jobs and inward investment and are often key parts of regeneration strategies.
In general we do not see the vaccine research laboratories, the synchrotrons, or the materials science analysts at work. But so what if they’re not ‘visible’? Does it really matter?
Answers to this question can be given at a number of levels; but in all cases the answer is Yes, invisibility does indeed matter.
The invisibility of Big Science reduces:
· public interest and involvement;
· the number of young people who will have an interest in SciTech as a career;
· engagement with industry and business;
· influence in matters of planning and infrastructure;
· opportunities to procure regeneration, at both practical and strategic levels.
Some of the follow-on repercussions of this invisibility are obvious; others are less so.
And the consequences are likewise different for different terrains. The ‘hothouse’ of the Golden Triangle [roughly, that area covering London, Oxbridge and the M4 / 5 corridors] is probably less directly vulnerable than, say, a Science Park in Northern England.
But it is at least possible that every part of the high level Knowledge Economy is disadvantaged by the inequity and uneven distribution of synergies between ‘hothouse’ and more isolated facilities. The former is becoming stressed, the latter need more support and development of capacity.
The Triple Helix of Innovation
It is now accepted that it is the synthesis of Universities, Industry and Government – the ‘Triple Helix’ – which brings about serious SciTech innovation. This Triple Helix, as we shall see, is in effect the Holy Grail to a vibrant knowledge-led twenty first century economy.
The world wide web may keep researchers and others in touch, but there is nothing like direct involvement from the big investment players to secure scientific progress in a given location. In other words, ad hoc development of SciTech facilities will take a local economy so far, but not far enough. Only strategic planning on a grand scale, and by with all parties working together, will however produce the sort of results which make a significant difference. And that means involvement at the highest levels of decision-making.
A corollary of this scenario is that people at all points on the decision-making ‘chain’ need to be aware of the complexities of SciTech. Again, this is more likely to be the case in the Golden Triangle, than in our off-the-map Northern Science Park. When a lot of local people are employed in SciTech jobs at the highest levels, as in the Golden Triangle, awareness of science and technology will be far greater than when this is not the case. Dispersed discreet locations without significant business links are on their own unlikely to change the local business or political perspective about what is important. – what does this mean for us and our knowledge economies?
The Daresbury Connection
A case in point here is the Daresbury Laboratory near Warrington, in the North West of England. This establishment, much of the work of which is as a world leader in the field of high energy physics, had been in existence for some decades, collaborating with the University of Liverpool and several other higher education and research laboratories.
By the mid-nineteen nineties, however, Daresbury had become something of an island unto itself, still conducting worthy international research but effectively disconnected from its locality, the local business / industrial base, and, critically, the political and administrative decision-making process.
The result of this disconnection was that the warning flags were not hoisted around the North West when the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, based in the Golden Triangle, decided to bid against Daresbury to the CCLRC (Central Council of the Laboratories of the Research Councils) to construct and operate DIAMOND, the planned third generation synchrotron – an intense light source which propels sub-atomic particles at extraordinary speeds in order to effect particle collisions for academic research and industrial / medical purposes.
By the approach of the Millennium it was becoming clear that Daresbury’s initial understanding about where the new light source would be placed were at best optimistic, although by then numbers of local and national politicians and others had also become involved in Daresbury’s attempt to secure the research funds which it had assumed were coming to the North West.
Similarly, and too late in the day, the North West Development Agency recognised that this was not simply a matter of ruffled feathers in academia, bur rather a matter of serious consequence for the whole of the region. Conferences were held, industrial and business liaisons established, plans proposed for collaboration with a number of the North West’s leading universities and hospitals – from which was later to be developed a proposal for a much more broadly-based programme of academic and applied science (CASIM). It was however too late to secure DIAMOND, and the contract went to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, taking with it some of Daresbury’s most highly skilled technicians.
An emerging perception of how Big Science fits the national economy.
It slowly transpired, however, that all was not lost when Daresbury had to concede DIAMOND (and thus much of its future funding) to Rutherford Appleton. The North West campaign to retain support for the Laboratory had by then gained considerable momentum. Regeneration and strategic planners across the region had begun to realise that here was a facility which no-one could afford to see as an ivory tower. The science and technology might be extremely complex, but it was not simply a toy for boffins; it was potentially an enormous asset to the North West region and beyond. (And besides, for many local people, the campaign had become a matter of civic pride – a factor which politicians and planners ignore at their peril!)
Interestingly, the collapse of Daresbury’s expectations at this time also proved to be a watershed for national governmental understandings of the interaction between Big Science and the economy, nationally and regionally. The model in use at the time of the DIAMOND decision was essentially that of straightforward competition.
It had hitherto been accepted – though perhaps largely on face-value – that the physical location of Big Science facilities should be brokered only on the basis of the preferences of direct partners and funders (the Wellcome Foundation, a massive funding body, was particularly vociferous about supporting only Rutherford Appleton – already, through long-standing connections between key Oxbridge players, a Wellcome partner in a number of activities).
Media outcry
The North West media outcry about losing DIAMOND also coincided with the beginnings of a repositioning nationally about how Big Science was to be taken forward. It was slowly dawning on national decision-makers that, whilst the quality of the science itself had to be (by a very long way) the lead criterion for the allocation of funding at this level, the project evaluation playing field was nonetheless not entirely even.
For instance, whilst it might perhaps be valid to suggest that more immediate business and industrial benefit might accrue from investment in the South East, the ultimate benefit of funding to the North West might be greater in terms of its impact on the regional economy.
Similarly, scientists of the very highest order might in general have been found in greater numbers in the Golden Triangle, this was not an excuse for failing to invest in research and development in the universities of the North West. As has subsequently been demonstrated, top scientists are willing in significant numbers to follow the most challenging science, wherever it is located – especially if the costs of housing etc are lower, as well.
And so we come to the present day story of Daresbury Laboratory. Daresbury has attracted a number of new and very senior staff to support outstanding colleagues based in North West universities, it has connected with business, industrial, strategic and political interests throughout the region, and it has established a fast-growing SciTech park led by major NW companies. Not every part of CASIM proved to be deliverable (the medical applications especially proved difficult, perhaps of the way that hospital-based research is supported); but Daresbury most importantly has secured the Fourth Generation Light Source programme, which will make it the world leader in this field.
The lessons of Daresbury
The Daresbury saga is salutary in a number of respects.
First, it demonstrates the increasingly competitive nature of SciTech, and especially Big Science, in modern economies.
Second, it shows that all parts of the Triple Helix – collaboration between universities, industries and the state – are essential in order to secure the sort of funding required for present day Big Science programmes.
And third, it illustrates very well the need for scientists, politicians and other public and private sector decision-makers at regional and sub-regional / local levels to remain alert, if they are to ensure adequate funding and other strategic support for prestigious and regenerationally effective SciTech enterprises.
There are therefore important lessons to be learned at regional and sub-regional levels.
Regionalism and the New Localism
One of the most defining aspects of Big Science is its internationalism. In the U.K. almost all Big Science projects will have a European aspect, probably under one of the European Union Frameworks for Science (we are currently on our 6th, and the 7th is under negotiation); and most projects will also be attached in some respects to laboratories such as, for instance, those at M.I.T. or CalTech in the United States.
This huge span of expertise and personnel arises largely organically in the first instance. Most serious scientists and technologists barely recognise national boundaries in their academic and applied work. Venture capital and the very high level knowledge economy have an operational syntax all of their own.
These facts of scientific life put notions of the ‘New Localism’ and of City Regions in a different light. They are, to be blunt, too small as areas and populations on their own to be realistic players in the battle for Big Science.
To illustrate this, the European Union recognises a number of population bases – NUTS, or Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics – of which the most commonly used in NUTS 1, or areas containing 3 – 7 million people. NUTS 1 areas are the size of major administrative units in most European countries; in fact, about the size of each of the English regions, and of Scotland and Wales respectively. City Regions are usually NUTS 2 size – 0.8 – 3 million people, and outside capital cities do not generally in most of Europe have autonomous governance.
Given that the annual budget of connected major Big Science programmes can approach that of the government of a small European country it is obviously not possible for them to operate at, say, the city region level . They require massive financial backing in terms of regional infrastructural support and they require equally massive buy-in from business and industry. And of course they need very significant numbers of available in-house expertise from local universities and other research institutions.
No non-capital town or city on its own is likely to be able to provide the levels of support required to secure significant Big Science onto its patch. The North West Development Agency and / or the Northern Way, for instance, can take full part as lead players; individual sub-regional cities, however otherwise important, can only be bit players on the Big Science stage.
The challenge for the New Localism
The message of Big Science is not entirely encouraging for those who eschew regionalism and seek preeminence for city-regions – not least because in reality most major cities simply don’t have the actual physical space, let alone the budget, to secure Big Science for themselves alone.
This is one scenario where, whatever applies elsewhere, only a shared and regional approach, or more, will do. For the U.K. at least this means that, if Big Science growth is to occur outside the Golden Triangle, the Holy Grail of the Triple Helix must be pursued by everyone, regardless of inter-city or inter-university rivalries or of otherwise competing interests between industries and businesses.
National Government must develop a policy on regional science, and regions and sub-regions must likewise respond to the opportunities such a policy would bring.
Read more about Knowledge-Led Regeneration, Regions, Sub-Regions & City Regions and Science Policy.
How Do We Cope When Someone’s Without Email?
The debate about social exclusion and e-technology continues. But there’s one issue which is rarely addressed: Is there an emerging protocol for when some people in a social or work grouping have email, and some don’t? And is the onus always on the email users to contact the rest? Or does it depend on who the people are and on the specific situation?
Have we become a ‘society’ completely dependent on e-technology? And are those who don’t have it ‘excluded’?
This isn’t a new question – it’s even cropped up on this very website before now – but it’s still a difficult one to crack. How, for instance, can geographically spread groups of people operate effectively, when some of them have email and some don’t?
There is more than one way to see this question; and maybe the hardest part of the problem is unpicking the ‘reasons’ people may or may not use e-technology. Have we reached the point where it’s as reasonable to expect people to have access to email, as it is to expect them to have access to a telephone?
Techno-avoidance, lack of skills, or lack of resources?
Does it ‘matter’ why a person won’t / can’t use email? Does protocol dictate a different response (from an email user) to the person who just doesn’t want email, than from the one who genuinely can’t easily obtain or use it?
Is it equitable to expect email users to telephone people who don’t use it, or should non-email people (generally, and assuming they are comfortably able) be expected to phone those who do use it? And how will they kow when to do so?
Email is so much more precise, and usually less obtrusive. Telephone conversations demand real-time connection and permit greater immediate flexibility, but are much more expensive (per item of contact) and intrusive.
Developing the protocol
I suspect that a protocol is beginning to emerge on these matters. But it is situation-specific.
In essence, the consensus seems to be that younger, and professional, people will use the www and email, or they won’t even be eligible to apply for jobs. Likewise, they use texting.
Others however still expect, and to some extent are expected, to use the telephone or ‘proper letters’.
Democracy and inclusion in action?
The problem arises when people in either ‘grouping’ want to be sure to include those in the other. Does anyone have good examples of how it’s done?
From where I sit, it looks like nearly all the work has to be done by the email users – printing out hard paper copies to post, phoning other people to tell them that emails are being circulated etc.
No doubt like many co-users of the internet, I got email to save time, energy and trouble. When I seek to be socially inclusive as a member of a group where most use email and a few don’t, it actually makes me into an unpaid secretary in the name of democracy. But I’m not sure everyone finds the energy to do the same.
Maybe the next big thing will be a technology which ‘translates’ emails and the like to voicemail – at the receiving end?
The Healthy Orchestra Challenge – At Last
The Association of British Orchestras today overtly acknowledged the health risks of orchestra playing. But for many orchestral musicians the reality of every day life is sparse professional support, low esteem, low pay and no say – exactly the conditions in which ill-health, stress and worry thrive.
It’s a puzzle that so many orchestral musicians have health-related problems, when there’s evidence that music, and perhaps especially classical music of some sorts, is ‘good’ for those who listen to it. A clue to this conundrum can be found in the conditions under which many players work.
The Association of British Orchestras, at their Annual Meeting in Newcastle, have today launched their Healthy Orchestra Charter. Now at last we see a formal acknowledgement by the organisations which employ them, that orchestral musicians experience significant health risks in the course of their professional work.
The list of risks is long – physical problems such as deafness and repetitive strain injury, bullying, burn-out and stage fright amongst them. Is it any wonder, with this level of risk, that so few players who enter orchestras – some of the best classical musicians we have – actually stay in that employment for the entirety of their professional lives?
Well-established research findings
Of course, it isn’t news that these significant risks occur. I attended the International Conference on Health and the Musician at York University in 1997, and even then the research literature was compelling. But it is encouraging that now the focus has moved from others pressing the point ‘in defence’ of the players, to the current position where, perhaps belatedly, employers themselves are addressing the problem directly.
From a formal health and safety perspective there’s no way round this in a modern employment situation, except to face the issues squarely; and the additional impetus of formal acknowledgement may also help the individuals at risk to feel more comfortable about coping. The problems have now been articulated where they need to be; which means those who experience them are more likely to get the proper support they require in the context of their employment instead of, as previously, only through informal arrangements such as the BAPAM scheme – life-saver though this can be, and hopefully will remain, for players with particular personal problems which they may not wish to share with their employers.
BAPAM is an excellent resource for musicians in genres across the board, but it can only address some of the issues for professional orchestral musicians. Orchestra players need (but usually don’t get) continuing professional development (CPD), at least outside ‘community education’ programmes. Occasional employer-sponsored consultation in instrumental technique from a really top-flight teacher would come in handy over the decades – as younger players slowly and often sadly discover. But this is rarely on offer. CPD of musician employees is a responsibility of orchestra managements, not of BAPAM doctors.
Isn’t it obvious that properly embedded individual instrumental technique support for orchestral musicians reduces the inevitable risk of small ‘bad habits’? And that in turn individual performance support increases personal confidence, and reduces the need for absence and / or medical intervention – thereby also reducing the overall costs, short and long term, both to the employer and to the individual? A virtuous circle indeed.
Continuing individual professional development for performers, supported by a serious orchestral management cheque book, is well overdue. ‘Our people,’ as every management everywhere insists, ‘are our prime resource…’
Other stress factors
Excellent though the Healthy Orchestras initiative is, it does then seem on first reading that not all the issues identified formally and informally at the 1997 York conference are being equally acknowledged. Stress factors which many musicians themselves identified included not only the obvious physical and psychological strains of the job, but also extraordinarily low pay and a sense in which they felt as though they were still ‘at school’ – you can be in an orchestra for many years and still have no acknowledgement of seniority of any kind, invisible in the scheme of things with not even your own place in the actual seating arrangements.
And that’s before we get to the issues (above) around keeping up personal performance skills – probably the most anxiety-making part of any professional musician’s day-to-day existence.
Plus, in some orchestras the managerial urge to present a youthful image has overtaken any respect for experience and what that brings to the particular ‘sound’ for which a given ensemble is known. Not only could this be a threat to the individuality of the great orchestras, but it’s personally distressing for those have who carried the tradition of their orchestra over the years.
Add to this the ingrained belief of many players that ‘you’re only as good as your last performance’ (no latitude for being human there), and the conviction that it’s possible for any player to be destroyed by constant criticism (Will I be the next to be bullied?) and the situation becomes a personal time bomb, buried deep in the collective psyche of the musicians on stage.
Music is good for you – mostly
So perhaps here’s the rub. Classical music offers those who listen to it enjoyment, solace and stimulation. And so in comfortable circumstances it does to those who perform it. I doubt any orchestral player enters a major symphony orchestra expecting less. This is a vocation which demands and promises much of and for those who aspire to it.
But, at least for all except the most highly ranked members (and perhaps for them too?), there’s something quite disturbing in more than one sense about the contexts of orchestral life.
Maybe it’s this:
You sit on whatever platform you’ve been dispatched to, a performer at the top of your profession under the relentless public scrutiny of the punters, your employers and (hardest of all) your equally stressed peers, without any discernible artistic or personal say in what happens – and dressed in a ‘uniform’ which your (often socially well-advantaged) audience understands to represent wealth and authority…. but you know differently. A silent cognitive dissonance abounds.
And you worry – about your playing, about your pay, about how you will fit your family and other external commitments into your irregular and unsocial performance schedule, about what could happen next.
No-one now disputes that stress affects most severely those who have least power and influence. Here’s a textbook ‘classical’ case of that happening.
See also: Orchestral Salaries In The U.K.
Life In A Professional Orchestra: A Sustainable Career?
Musicians in Many Guises
British Orchestras On The Brink
Where’s The Classical Music In The Summer? An Idea…
Modern Cities Need History And Style – So Let’s All Find Out How It’s Done
The strongly held views on Liverpool’s World Heritage Site and the Museum of Liverpool proposals have something to tell us about how we sometimes need to look beyond our own patch, to see what could or should be done. Perhaps ‘cultural exchange’ programmes within our own shores might be a start, so helping citizens to know each other’s towns and cities across the nation?
Lots of debate as usual about architecture and design, following the Heritage Lottery decision not to fund the Museum of Liverpool…. The views about the World Heritage Site and so forth have been interesting – as ever!
The last few days I’ve been in London with my family and, as it happens, doing the ‘visitor’ bit around the Tate Modern, the City, Covent Garden and Westminster. What strikes me so strongly is that most people in London don’t seem to have a huge problem about Big Buildings and Little Buildings, old ones and new.
The mix of old and new
Of course, ‘new’ buildings adjacent to ‘old’ ones (and they don’t get much more historic than some in the parts of London I was seeing) are often designed very well in a style which merges… but then you get the Gherkin. What an amazing construction! There’s St. Paul’s being done up, and behind it what you can only term a huge conical mirror. But I really don’t think it looks ‘wrong’.
In fact, one of the things that strikes me is how vibrant this miscellany of buildings, mile upon mile of them, is. Some young people I know who have moved to the Capital have actually chosen large drawings and (v dramatic) photographs of the Foster building and similar as the artwork for their own home…. and they’re exactly the sort of young professionals Liverpool would dearly have liked to keep here. But London offers so much more.
I definitely don’t think that all ‘modern’ architecture is appropriate wherever it’s put. It has to be excellent and well-positioned to earn its footprint. But I’d guess the folk in London are lucky in being (literally) more cosmopolitan in their approach; they’ve seen more of the world – in general, not all of them of course – than folk in Liverpool (again, in general). Expecting exciting and perhaps controversial architecture alongside a proper respect for the historic, and off-set by wide-open green spaces, probably goes with that wider mindset.
Where’s the wider experience and context?
When are we going to start to try to ensure that as many Liverpool people as possible have a wider context in which to judge their city? Isn’t it time actively to encourage people, young and older, to visit other places and experience (not just ‘look at’) other contexts, so that they can have a more broadly informed view of what goes on here, as well? It’s difficult to have a positive, balanced position when the basis of it is often so narrow, even perhaps parochial.
And is there something here for everyone? Would it be a good thing if we all tried to experience parts of the country outside our own patch? Never mind ‘foreign’ exchanges, worthy though these can be. What about learning more about where we actually live, as well?
The Worst Day Of The Year? Not For Me!
Monday January 23rd has been declared the Worst Day of this Year; last year Miserable Monday was on the 24th January. But that’s a date I always look forward to. It’s the annual event in my personal calendar when convention decrees I get to choose a treat with family and friends. In other words, my birthday. (Let’s forget the age aspect here, surely it’s the company which counts?!) Which all goes to show that there’s only a Worst Day of the Year if we elect to see it that way. Or, as the gurus and psychologists all tell us, most of us most of the time can choose if we wish to be happy….
Apparently Monday 23rd January this year is the ‘worst’ day of the year.
Well, last year Miserable Monday was the 24th, so for me it certainly wasn’t the Worst Day; and nor, she assures me, was it some while ago for my mum and dad…. that date is my birthday, and I was their no. 1 arrival. Which goes to prove that what’s best, or indeed worst, is in the eye of the beholder. We might all be getting longer in the tooth, but my guess is few of us lose that little tingle of anticipation when it comes to the one day in the year when convention proclaims we’re Special.
So my year sometimes has no Worst Day. For lucky me 24 January is always a day for indulgence (if I can get away with it) and definitely for fun with family and friends.
Happiness is where you find it
I can be as sad or stressed as the next person – believe me – but my odd personal coincidence of dates has set me thinking. The declaration about Miserable Monday only reached me recently. For many years I’ve innocently looked forward to that date, for the opportunities / excuse it brought to meet up with people I really want to see, and, where posible, to escape the humdrum. And now here we are being told it’s the ultimate in dark and dismal days.
So there you go, or rather perhaps there I go in this case…. another year older but still hoping for a pleasant celebratory diversion, keeping my fingers crossed it’ll be OK even if it’s on the newly-proclaimed Worst Day of the Year.
How to be happy
Of course there are folk whose situations mean that, or any other day, can only be no fun at all. But most of us, fortunately, are less burdened. There are lots of findings and hints on how to be happy. There’s really not much excuse for not trying, at least if we’re moderately blessed in what life offers.
The good news appears to be that we can actually decide for ourselves to look on the bright side. There’s even a website called Authentic Happiness which says it aims to help you stay positive!
But if you’d rather stick with a few general hints than use interactive IT to take you to contentment, here are some of the ideas I’ve gleaned which seem to shine through:
** Forget about money; it only matters if you truly don’t have enough.
** Look after yourself physically and emotionally; you have value. (If you have a health or other problem, or are concerned you may have, get it sorted. Real problems require real resolutions, sometimes with the help of others. That’s part of looking after yourself.)
** You already know what not to do if you want to stay well. Now add the positives – take exercise, eat a ‘rainbow’ (lots of different fruit and veg., plus any supplements such as omega 3 which you need) and – hypocrite though I am – get enough sleep.
** Don’t dwell on what went ‘wrong’, instead concentrate fully on the good things, even the very small good things…. in the words of one commentator, ‘Thank your lucky stars about what goes right on a daily basis.’ (They mean it: every single day, not just when the whim takes you.)
** Immerse yourself in the moment, working, at leisure or however else. Don’t be distracted from the activity, enjoy or appreciate it fully.
** Seek out and share experiences with other positive people. (Could this be a special challenge for those of us born on Miserable Monday? I’m up for it, it’s not hard… everyone I know enjoys our excuse for a Bit Of A Do on that particular date!)
** Smile.
And finally, as a very wise person (I don’t know who, do you?) said, ‘If you can’t be happy, be useful.’ Which will probably have the same effect in many ways as all the other advice we’ve seen above.
So who cares what the date is? …. Worst Day or not, have a very good day!
The ‘Mummy Track’ To… A Tough Life?
Becoming a parent is something uniquely rewarding and unlike any other life experience. But does this mean that the parent who almost always shoulders the main day-to-day responsibility for family care should routinely also experience low pay and significant risk of chronic stress?
‘Even when their children have left home, the average hourly wage of their mothers remained at 72% of the male average,’ we are told today in The Guardian.
I imagine that no-one who’s actually considered this will be surprised. It’s part of the findings of a new large-scale research report, Newborns and New Schools (Brewer and Paull, Jan. 2006, Institute of Fiscal Studies / Department of Work and Pensions).
Having, and sharing life with, our own children is probably the most amazing and rewarding experiences most of us, men and women alike, can choose to have. But it’s not an equitable choice.
Stress is inequitable too
On another page of today’s Guardian we read that research on civil servants shows women are five times more likely than men to have the risk factors linked with stress in the office – and it’s most apparent in the lower-paid levels of employment. This study (Tarani Chandola, UCL), like the DWP one, was very large, so we probably need to take it seriously.
And my point is… the stressors identified in chronic stress, a condition which can damage the metabolism of sufferers in very significant ways, are gender-related, aren’t they? Lower employment status equals more stress; and motherhood, sadly, is linked with lower status at work.
The conditions which bring about these gender-related outcomes may be complicated, but we need to acknowledge and explore them more directly. For whatever reasons many people, women sometimes as much as men, are uncomfortable with the ‘gender agenda’. Maybe it’s threatening?
But ignoring patently significant work-related health risks is silly – and a lot more than just silly – by anyone’s standards.
The Friends Of St James’ Cemetery And Gardens, Liverpool
The Friends of St James’, who are restoring the historic cemetery and park next to Liverpool Cathedral, have achieved much in the few years of their formal existence. The inner city becomes, by the hard work of volunteer environmentalists and gardeners, joining with equally committed volunteer lobbyists, a place where green space can thrive to encourage the naturalist in us all.
The Friends of St James Cemetery And Gardens held its third AGM this evening. Reports from the Chair, local resident and sculptor Robin Riley, and the Vice-Chair, Prof. Tony Bradshaw, a noted emeritus researcher from the University of Liverpool, were incredibly encouraging – programmes of volunteer engagement, plans for children’s educational activities, accounts of excellent public engagement events during the past year … all warmed the heart and gave us hope for the future of this unique inner-city environmental resource.
St James’ is a space dug out by the masons of yesteryear (I suspect that blocks of its red stone comprise the wall at the back of my house), and situated right next to Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral. It holds about eighty thousand graves, relating in their stony way the history of the city for many decades up to the 1930s.
The cemetery, now also a park or ‘gardens’, hosts the Huskisson Memorial and much other testimony to Liverpool’s history. Amongst the other very interesting things to be found in this hollow scooped from the innrer city are a natural well and many exciting nooks and crannies. But until recently it was a no-go area, somewhere that most of us were rather afraid to explore at any time of day.
Pulling together to reclaim the space
The opportunity to reclaim this large space arose at least in part from the Bishops’ Conference on Social Responsibility which was held at Liverpool Cathedral in 2001. The environmentally aware theme of this conference resonated with the ambitions of many of us at the Cathedral and in HOPES: The Hope Street Association to develop the St. James’ site (which runs along the southern part of Hope Street) as part of our long-awaited Hope Street Millennium Public Realm proposals. In this ambition we found sterling support from David Shreeve of the national organisation the Conservation Foundation, a keen environmentalist who was much involved with Liverpool Cathedral and in this conference.
David worked with HOPES and others to encourage the City Council to see the value of developing the historic site right on our doorstep, and so the Friends of St James was formed. Here is an example of how having someone beyond the local scene to act as a champion can work wonders. What is declared by influential people beyond the locality to be precious may well be similarly perceived also by local decision-makers before too long.
Building for the future
So now we have a very active organisation for St James’ which will soon be a registered charity, and we also have buy-in from the City Council and Liverpool Vision, as well as from many ‘ordinary’ citizens of the city.
We also have big plans, including the imaginative Bridge of Hope, a project for a glass bridge which is intended to take people on a walkway at street level, high above the cemetery, straight into the Cathedral – thereby at last realising a dream which has been part of the Hope Street ambition for many decades.
What prospects for green space in the city?
Liverpool has been very slow to treasure its parks and green space. Sefton Park, for instance, has been left quietly to ‘naturalise’ for many years until very recently; but the Friends of Sefton Park, like those of St James’, have campaigned long and hard to develop these parks a sensibly managed public space once more… And it’s happened, because citizens of the city living around and enjoying these green spaces, cared enough to make a fuss and involve other, generously helpful people.
Let’s hope the same success can now be achieved by people who are campaigning for improvements to Newsham Park and other superb parks and green spaces in Liverpool. Newsham Park, for instance, has hard-working Friends as well. They need support!
The critical thing is, unless people can enjoy green space for themselves, they probably won’t be able to value it as they could, indeed should. It’s become a generational thing. If you haven’t seen it, you probably won’t want it, whether its allotments, parks or simply somewhere nice to walk.
Inevitably we must accept that Liverpool’s parks and open spaces cannot all, and unreservedly, be ‘set in aspic’ (to use a naturalistic metaphor); but I applaud wholeheartedly those who fight to ensure that the children of today have the opportunity, by example of fellow local citizens, to become be the enthusiastic users, and indeed guardians, of inner-city green space in the future.
See also
Liverpool’s Two Cathedrals
Hope Street Quarter, Liverpool and
Camera & Calendar.
City Centres For Young People, Suburbs For Older People: Ageist Planning For Homes?
The city centres of England, we are told, are populated mainly by young singles; but at the same time there is an increase in the number of older people who have supported independent living. So how do these two facets of modern life fit together?
The ‘conveyor belt effect’ is a new one on me. Apparently it refers to the idea that city centres tend to be populated by single 18-34’s, who then move out to the suburbs.
A new report by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) City People: City Centre Living in the UK
But where do older people live?
It’s an interesting contrast that, in the same Guardian reporting column (11 January 2006) that I read about the IPPR study, there’s a piece on independent living for older people.
Apparently there has been a rise in the proportion of older people in England who live independently at home, rather than in residential care (30.1% in 2003/4; 32% in 2004-5); but it’s uneven by region. The Health and Social Care Information Centre (report, PP 6 10) found wide regional variations, with 44.7% for inner London and only 27.7% in unitary authorities.
It would be interesting to know more about where these older, independently housed people live. Are some of them in the city centres too? Or are they on they periphery, having ‘moved out’ when they had their families? Or were housing patterns when they were young quite different anyway, with the ‘extended family’ arrangements reported for instance in London’s Bethnal Green, by Willmott and Young all those years ago?
Do housing plans actually meet need?
In an earlier piece I suggested that there’s a need to incorporate accommodation in small blocks in all sorts of housing areas. City centres must be made much more friendly for families and older people; and the suburbs (and that strange ‘donut’ around city centres) needs to have much more flexible and helpful housing units too. And this applies to towns and villages at least as much as it does to cities, as perhaps the NHS / HSCIC data indicate.
When there’s a real mix, there’s more chance of support for everyone, and a real community – and that’s where I’d love the planners and builders really to get a grip.
Read the discussion of this article which follows the book E-store….
Official: Community Engagement Can Stress You Out
The RENEW Northwest Intelligence Report just published (January 2006) on ‘Making a difference: Participation and wellbeing’ marks an important step forward in our notions of volunteering and its outcomes. Professor Carolyn Kagan suggests that community activists often find their ‘work’ stressful and unrewarding.
It is indeed time we re-examined the notion of ‘putting something back’; but we shouldn’t assume that only those who live in difficult circumstances can share common cause in regeneration and renewal. People with professional skills who themselves become involved as volunteers can also find the going very hard – as any regeneration professionals taking Prof. Kagan’s advice to ‘practise what they preach’ might well discover.
Given that work-related stress has long been known to be related to powerlessness and / or impossible demands, I’m surprised it’s taken so long… but now we have the official acknowledgement that community engagement by volunteers can be as stressful as it can be rewarding.
In her report Making a difference: Participation and wellbeing (Renew Northwest, 2006) Professor Carolyn Kagan from Manchester Metropolitan University suggests that, ‘far from being a source of wellbeing, participation can actually increase stress.’ Community activists, she has found, work ‘under unrelenting pressure: isolated, without supervision, coping with local conflict, without time off – and without pay.’
‘Consulting residents about a regeneration project,’ we are told, ‘is a top-down system which can often result in local needs being defined by the professionals, with little ‘ownership’ by residents.’ (This worries me a bit; isn’t it helpful that there be professionally experienced people genuinely embedded in all communities, so that issues wider than the parocial are also ‘stakeheld’ by all concerned?)
Who are the ‘community activists’?
Nonetheless, Prof. Kagan has a very valid point. You only have to become a little involved to see that the people who are most active in ‘communities’ are also often those who are least impressed by what is being achieved around them, and that despondency is often the name of the game.
And you can also fairly quickly see that the powers-that-be, probably without conscious intent, often play their own games in this, favouring some groups and individuals against others, hoovering up ideas and regurgitating them as ‘policy’ to be ‘explained’ to the hapless people who first thought of it, and generally bureaucratising whatever they touch. (Of course some degree of bureaucracy is essential; but some of it is also rather convenient in terms of how officialdom chooses to engage with the punter.)
But there is another question too: why should be assumed that ‘community activists’ are necessarily ‘tenants’ or ‘residents’ or always themselves live in a ‘community’ (whatever that means) which itself struggles? Sometimes this specific sort of engagement is the only legitimate way forward, but many other issues which need addressing are wider than that.
‘Activists’ come in all shapes and sizes
Is there no commonality between all the sorts of people who work voluntarily to gain benefit for different ‘communities’? Aren’t local political parties and, say, religious leaders and charitable organisations all run on the basis of very little financial reward for a lot of hard slog?
The people involved in these organisations may well be articulate, easily able to make their case and very committed to involving everyone – but they are often just as stressed by the response of officialdom as anyone else. In fact, it could be thought that they are even less well received by regeneration bureacrats than are those with fewer recognised and assets, precisely because they are seen by the powers-that-be as more of a challenge or ‘threat’.
Engagement by professionals is a difficult issue
The un-welcome which articulate and professionally qualified people sometimes experience when they try to work as volunteeers for the larger community interest is very significant. Prof. Kagan suggests that if regeneration professionals are serious about accepting and supporting the role of ‘community activists’, they should take on this role in their ‘own home and work communities’… or presumably anywhere where they feel there is – and here perhaps we get to the real underlying issue – legitimate common cause?
If my observations are anything to go by, the regeneration professionals are in for a shock if they actually follow Prof. Kagan’s advice. They could find that they are vulnerable on all fronts… the ‘community’ wonders what they’re up to, their co-professionals feel uncomfortable, and the powers-that-be actively resist their involvement.
It takes forward looking, positive and confident practitioners to accept their peers as ‘volunteer’ stakeholders with legitimate engagement in the regeneration and renewal process; and confident practitioners, happy and able to share, and comfortable in their skins, are sadly not exactly what’s to be found in some of these programmes.
Dreaming Realist 