Sunday 26 June 2011

Balmy Twilights and Party Memories.

The promised ‘heatwave’ arrived today, and this evening was truly balmy for the first time this year. At 10.30 it was still warmer outside than it was in my house, so I made the most of it. I sat outside until well beyond sunset with my guitar, a mug of fresh coffee, and oh so many thoughts.

There’s something almost indescribably splendid about an English country garden on a warm evening surrounded by the heavy, vibrant growth of high summer and just the softest breeze to animate the lighter tree branches. There was no traffic on the lane for two hours, and even the planes coming over to approach East Midlands Airport sounded quieter than usual. And so I sat there, watching the world darken imperceptibly and the western sky fill with colour until the bats flew and the barn owl called the start of his nocturnal adventure.

For some reason, my thoughts turned to parties. I’ve only been a party animal twice in my life. The first was when I was in my teens, and my schoolfriends – later ex-schoolfriends – used to hold a party once a week. They were good, decent, clean affairs – nothing sordid, threatening or unpleasant. The alcohol flowed, of course, and we danced, joked and flirted, but nothing more. The boys respected the girls, the girls understood the line between what was attractive and what was provocative, and we all respected the parents whose house we were using. We even did our own washing up before they came home at about two in the morning. The nearest we ever came to drama was when I had to step in and prevent a fight between Slim and Bazzer, but that was an extremely rare occurrence and all over in a matter of minutes. Enjoyment and mutual respect were the keywords. Isn’t that how life should be?

Interestingly, the next time I got myself involved in the party scene was nearly thirty years later with the actors from the theatre. And do you know what? They were pretty much the same. Enjoyment and mutual respect. Nothing more.

I have the impression that things are very different now. Teenagers seem to have got themselves into such a sordid, dirty, dangerous mess these days. Or is it the Establishment that has failed them and set them on a sordid, dirty and dangerous road? It seems that any concept of standards is hopelessly passé now; there is only peer pressure that o’erleaps itself and falls on the other.

How I got onto that subject sitting in an English country garden through a balmy twilight escapes me. But I did.

2 comments:

Della said...

Very good questions here. I don't know the causes for this lack of respect, but think that society's obsession with wealth since the 1980s has had a dire effect on people. That, and a media which distorts the relevance of news and information (or what passes as), seems to have created monsters we cannot control. The smaller, genuine things in life have become as you say – passé. Sometimes I think it will only end in crisis, that common sense has gone out the window, but maybe that's pessimistic. I don't know.

JJ said...

I agree about the 1980s and its legacy, Della. Some of us saw it happening at the time and railed against it. I had to visit the capital of yuppiedom - London's Docklands - in the late 80s/early 90s and hated what I saw (and felt.)

But I also wonder whether we should take the long term view. Could this just be a classic case of decadence following civilisation, as usually seems to happen? In which case, it seems we're heading for a fall.

Or is that too simplistic?