Let the sun shine in rather than moan (From This Is Local London)

Let the sun shine in rather than moan

7:10pm Saturday 17th December 2011 in Colin Baker

I WAS contacted by a radio station this week. They were running a phone in, offering people the opportunity to have a good moan and, for some reason, thought I would be a fertile source of grumpiness. I seized the opportunity, of course, and banged on relentlessly about all the things that regular readers of this column will recognise – people who put on those rear fog lights when there is a mere wisp of mist blinding everyone behind them, compensation-chasing legal firms that induce exaggerated insurance claims, litter, political correctness, the nanny state, the disappearance of the words ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’ and parents who expect schools to take over their role of disciplining their children.

When I put the phone down, it struck me that it is much easier to think of things to complain about than it is to celebrate the good stuff, those moments when life surprises you positively rather than negatively. I suppose that is unsurprising because things that really get your goat tend to linger on in the memory whereas, sadly, those rarer, more uplifting moments tend to get quickly forgotten. So I decided that this week I would try to allow the spirit of Christmas to inhabit me for a moment and count some blessings.

Funnily enough it is the things that previous generations would truly have taken for granted that are unusual enough to delight this flinty heart. The check-out girl who chats to you as if you are an old friend and seems to genuinely believe that each customer is important, the girl in the distant call centre who actually does ring you back and sort out your problem without making you feel you’re an irritant, the people who do thank you when you hold a door open for them. I offer a tiny incident that highlights how easy it is to let the sun shine in. I was checking the oil in my wife’s car at the weekend when a man came past with his dog. I looked up and said “Good morning” and he responded with a smile and raised his hat to me. When did you last see that? What a lovely thing to do; an action that would have been so commonplace as to be unworthy of comment in my grandfather’s day. I never wear a hat and find myself wishing that I did so I could emulate his courtesy.