Comment on Help! We need to ring the changes... from p4
IN THESE increasingly hectic times where our jobs make more and more demands upon our time and energy, traditional pastimes are increasingly taking a back seat for many.
As we work ever longer hours for less pay, cricket teams are struggling to find players, with clubs folding and merging at an alarming rate.
This week we have learned it is the same story within the world of bellringing, as ever-decreasing numbers threaten the continuation of the practice in Betchworth.
In the words of tower captain Martin Higgins, bellringing is a "peculiarly English" hobby, which creates a soundtrack and ambience found almost exclusively in our towns and villages.
Villages in relatively rural East Surrey would be much diminished without those chimes and, for that matter, the thwack of leather on willow.
The time has clearly come for us to take stock and consider which aspects of our lives we can do without, and which must be defended.
Is it really a better use of our short time on earth to slump in front of "augmented reality" television shows than to socialise and exercise with our friends and neighbours?
The words of Joni Mitchell have never been more relevant: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."
We must think about the kind of world we are creating through our apathy.