I remember as a young child in the early 1950s it was always drummed into me that we must always respect the space around others we meet in public. I have always taken this social conscience to mean don’t walk within a metre or two of others where context allows, like in a public park or open space. It also means where a view is involved in a particular direction and a choice is available you walk behind them not through their view.
Over the last decade in particular this social conscience seems to be dying. I comment on this sad state of affairs at least weekly if not more often. This morning we parked in the only ocean-facing spot in the Tugun surf club car park and drank our coffees in the car because of rain threatening. There were a couple of guys standing on the grass gazing at the ocean just in front of the parking space. Did they think of moving a couple of metres to the completely empty space 20 metres on either side to allow us the view? They did not, and just for full measure another guy and a couple of their kids came to join them. For 15 minutes this was our view of the ocean about a metre in front of the bonnet.
How’s that for a deep social conscience? We broke out laughing two or three times but these guys did not cotton on. What is the world coming to (as my mother used to say)?
