I used to think we on this island had initiative and common sense until a number of years ago a very simple event highlighted to me this was not the case. Until this time I was of the belief we would pull together and help each other, sort things out and get on.

But to my surprise it wasn’t like that at all and I felt like I had either been deceived about the British people and where I was from, or something had been lost.

The very simple event was snow. At the time I lived down a sloping road off a hill, meaning when it got very icy and snowed a fair bit, it would be impossible to use unless it was gritted or removed by hand. As a side road it didn’t qualify for gritting, this I understood. The road was completely covered and no cars could make it in or out without extreme danger of sliding and crashing.

So, in my naivety I presumed ‘people’ would get shovels out and remove the snow to make the road usable again. But no, something else happened. A lot of complaining, about how the council should be clearing the road, how it was the governments fault we didn’t have gritters or someone else to do the job for us. And for days the road was effectively blocked. Until my household actually needed to go out, so rather than moaning about how we couldn’t get out, we got shovels and got ourselves out. And what was really a slap in the face, was as soon as we did it, others did it. And within half an hour the road was clear enough to use… so just waiting for someone else to take the lead, it was disappointing.

The moral of that for me was don’t sit around moaning that someone else hasn’t done something or thinking a problem will fix itself. And it became starkly obvious people will just sit around and wait to be told what to do, or will just wait for someone else to do it for them. There is a time to be patient and there is a time for action, you just need to know the difference and when each is appropriate.

(c) K Wicks