You might feel from the title that this would be best categorised as anything but a ‘good thing’ .. but I reckon this is the right place.
Just prior to Christmas, I found myself in Reading, Berkshire. I headed off to a client of mine with a journey of about 40 minutes ahead of me. A successful and pleasant meeting with a long-term client for a couple of hours, and then I head back to my original location as snow begins to fall.
After 20 minutes, I start getting close to Reading again and discover to my dismay that snow has in fact been falling heavily; the roads are white over, cars are gridlocked and the next (theoretically 2o minutes) of my journey takes me a further 7 hours, before I finally have to abandon the car entirely and walk through drifting snow for another two hours to get home .. mobile phone network is virtually inaccessible (so many people calling home to warn of late arrival perhaps), roads are blocked, cars are abandoned all around .. Reading has ground to a complete halt.
Amidst all of this chaos I experienced a startling social shift in those around me.
Now, to briefly put this in context .. I am originally from the Midlands, studied in Nottingham and for some years had a lovely girlfriend from Pontefract .. so I have quite a lot of experience of the ‘Northern’ social attitude. By and large I have always found it to be open, welcoming and friendly, so when my family shifted to the South, it was a bit of a culture shock (ALERT – massive generalisation arriving up ahead). Southerns are noticeably colder, suspicious and more insular ~ talk unprompted to a complete stranger in a street in Reading and you are likely to be considered a dangerous loony and uncomfortably avoided … or more simply just knifed and robbed.
Bring on a spot (a spot!?) of snow and the total traffic chaos it caused however .. and this changed beyond belief. Something about the ‘Dunkerque’ spirit clearly remains in the British psychology and it was a quite wonderful thing to behold. People were happily chatting out of the car windows to folks equally stuck in the traffic heading in the opposite direction, Churches had opened up to provide warm sancturies and (in one area I found myself anyway) bringing flasks of steaming coffee and warmed minced pies along the lines of immobile traffic to cheer us all up. Folks with 4×4′s were helping tow others without 4×4′s up steep icy roads which would have otherwise proved impossible for them .. bizarrely, it was quite emotional to witness - there was no anger, no furious car horns or gesticulations of frustration .. instead, a simple quietness descended with the flakes. The people of Reading and those making an ill-timed visit to the town became as friendly and supportive a bunch as you could ever hope to encounter.
It was really quite wonderful.
