Community, Upbringing and Antisocial Behaviour!

A few weeks ago, while I was working in the pub, the landlady’s son came through the door with his mate. They had just been attacked by a group of lads, who were wondering the alleys in the less desirable area of Buckland, just over the road from where I am living at my Aunts in Fratton. The area isn’t particularly appealing, with a large block of brutalist architecture, overlooking the main dual carriageway into Portsmouth City centre and it isn’t a place I would choose to live. Having said that, is it right to tar all residents with the same brush? Is everyone that lives there rough, dragged up and generally without a moral compass? Buckland encompasses a large council estate, with many of the poorest people in this great naval city living there - a ghetto for the poor and a utopian idea that went wrong? Or a neighbourhood blighted by a few bad eggs, that suffers from neglect, but essentially has a community spirit, long since lost in other recent soulless, uninspiring developments?

Despite being born in Portsmouth in 1971, I have never actually lived here. I grew up in and around the small village of Titchfield and essentially was sheltered from city life. As a family, we struggled like any other, but none of us really understood what real poverty was about. Mother was always at home to make my Brother and I a meal at lunch and dinner time and my Father worked hard in the same job for many years. As a family we lived within our means but always had enough money to get by. When I look back to those times I am proud of what my parents achieved for us. Both my Brother and I had a good standard of education, working hard at school and enjoyed a pretty comfortable childhood, away from the pressures of poverty, just a few miles down the road.

Mother and Father instilled in both of us, the need to ‘make things last’ and reuse, recycle and hand down material items, not spending unnecessarily. Mum and Dad had the same television set for over twenty years, the sofa even longer, not replaced, but reupholstered when it had seen better days. My parents bought quality items, Gplan furniture, Axminster carpets and Parker Knoll three piece suites, knowing that they would last a generation or more. They saved hard for these things and never got into debt, unlike people today.

Back in the 1970s people understood the value of money and didn’t waste their hard earned cash, equally they appreciated the importance of community and living with like minded individuals, who always looked after their own. As a child I would spend time in and out of neighbours houses, Lee Knight at number 4, Penny Pink at number 5 and Wall and Joan at number 8. If Mum and Dad were busy, doing the garden, cooking dinner or chatting with friends, we would spend time with those who lived close. I remember sat in Wally and Joan's house at the end of the row in Nashe house where we lived, positioned between them both, just like they were my Gran and Grandad. It was a Friday night and ‘It’s a Knockout’ was on the television. Mum and Dad were just a few doors away, finishing some decorating in the kitchen and you could hear Lee, Penny and Mia playing outside. Wall and Joan’s front porch was unlocked, as it always was; various neighbours popping their head round the door from time to time, saying hello and talking for a while, while I sat there oblivious to the big World outside and the difficulties other families were going through, just trying to survive.

I lived on a Council Estate, just like Buckland, not as large or imposing, but social housing nevertheless. The flats were well kept and looked after, there was no violence, old sofas or fridge freezers left outside front doors, just a vibrant community, where everyone worked hard, striving for a better future. During the 1970s there was no real poverty like there is today, of course there probably was, I just didn’t notice it. There were no food banks, rubbish piled in the streets and abusive children, gangs and parents who never should have had kids in the first place. There were just decent families, occasional disagreements and a desire the help one another out when the need arose. Of course this is my view of life back then, the observations I made and recall today. No one really knows what goes on behind closed doors, but I can only speak about my own recollections.

When one walks around Buckland, it is run down, terribly dilapidated and ramshackled. Gangs of youths, wearing hoodies roam the dark poorly lit roads at night and the area is blighted by graffiti, detritus and a lack of community spirit and I generally feel unsafe walking through the estate at any time of day. I must stress that I am not saying the people who live there are all bad, because the majority are not, but unlike when I grew up forty plus years ago, there is a significant majority who are making life hard for everyone else.

Antisocial behaviour is the scourge of 2019. Since I left home in 1992, I have lived in some of the worst places in the World. St Mary’s in Southampton was equally as run down, with prostitutes on every corner and children running riot up and down the roads. In the flat I used to live in, there was always a drug addict in the entrance porch, needles littering the pavement outside and boarded up windows and doors, but I still felt safe and ignored most of what was happening around me. Even then there wasn’t the gangs of youths there are  today, a philosophy imported from the United States of America and this, combined with an influx of drugs and a knife culture out of control, all serves to make many city streets no go areas at night.

Let me include a status I wrote on facebook last night:

‘Walking home from the pub tonight, one could be forgiven for thinking every one under the sun, apart from me was stoned off their box:

Mother of the year, pushing a screaming child around the back streets of Fratton, at 11.30 at night, arguing on her smart phone to what I can only assume was her boyfriend, though I could've been wrong, smoking a well Tailored spliff, flicking ash on the roof of the pram!

...A disabled gentleman in his wheelchair laughing loudly with his mate outside his house, can of craft cider in his hand, puffing away on a joint, taking about the benefits of cannabis...

... The smell of weed wafting out from the keebab house on the corner, as the staff enjoyed a few moments break from doing absolutely nothing…

... Even a big fat black bird, who should have been tucked up in his nest, mistakenly pecking away at the remains of half smoked reefer believing it to be something edible!

It's only when you are sober that you notice these things...’

This was a snapshot of life, as I left my place of work and headed home, after a night at the Newcome where I work; a typical evening in Fratton as I walked home after a quite Monday night shift. I wasn’t disgusted by what I saw, I was just rather sad. Drugs exist wherever you go and people will always take them, but this type of behaviour just adds to the run down nature of the communities in which we live today. In itself it isn’t a real issue and I don’t have a problem with anyone smoking a joint, but what does worry me, is the type of individuals who sell this stuff, engaging in illegal activity to fund a lifestyle that breeds contempt towards local residents, who just want to claim their neighbourhoods back. By all means have a smoke now and again if that is what you want, but the Government should regulate the market, as they do in Holland and other countries, keeping the streets safe for everyone to use.

I am happy to once again be a part of a busy and thriving neighbourhood. This area does have its complications and shortcomings but as a rule people get on with one another. The pub in which I work is typical of all those who live here. A back street boozer, with an identity rich in character from the numerous personalities who drink in this local hub. Fratton is made up of many diverse people and represents Britain at large, a small example of modernity in these British Isles. In order to get back to a past that so many like me, look back too without regret and foreboding, we need to tackle problems of poverty, education and encourage equality and accountability. Once we remove the trash from the streets, we can all get back to doing what we do best, fighting for a future, fit for all!

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