Public support for the law NB

Re: Now I resent the Jibe

about Holidays on Tall Ships. As a member of an organisation that takes kids, on those types of excursion, I can tell you of the positive benefit that they gain from the experience. It is no "Holiday" & the growth in the personalities of the kids has to be seen to be believed. I send my own kids on the same trips. They return better & more rounded people for the experience.

It is easy to knock when you only hear the sensationalised stories in the press but, take it from me, it does work.

Martin

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Re: Now I resent the Jibe

Martin

No jibe intended, my humour I'm afraid.

I started sailing with Ocean Youth Club on the 1962 Tall Ships Race, so I know what it involves! And it is fun as well as hard work. I came from a 'financially challenged' family too and I paid for my trip by working two paper rounds, potato picking etc, I did not get it as a reward for being a vandal or stealing cars.

Robin

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Re: Now I resent the Jibe

Robin,
Hi just read the thread & the premis that the 'Law' is an ass seems to me to be well proved from the few anecdotes.
But the kids/youths.....Why? what made them do it?
I am afraid that we "The Wrinklies" have to answer & get involved!
Bigmart & his sailing on Tall ships is one way, giving them a sense of resposibility maybe, I dont know! Don't get me wrong I am all for slapping them down, but it does grieve & frustrate me, when i see all this wasted talent. They may have been our next Olympic fireball hope?

I really hate to say it but we are the parents/grandparents to the youth of today so - Where did we go wrong?

poter.

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Re: All the kids & the crew

including me, pay the same on the boats I sail. The organisation charges £60 per week. As you can imagine this barley covers the cost of food. We take kids from all walks of life. Public Schools, The Scout Association & Sea Cadets are examples of some. Not just the, so called, bad ones.

Its one of the most rewarding experiences that I have had.

As regards the humour. I know what you mean, its very hard to convey humour, particularly dry humour, in text format.

Martin

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Re: Now I resent the Jibe

We adopted crazy, poorly researched education policies, and raised a generation which was poorly equipped to raise the next generation; this has been amplified by cradle to grave social policies and unlimited welfare. At last they've stopped the benefits for that woman whose been on the dole for 16 yrs and never had a job (R4 this morning). There is some sense of reality returning to education at last after debacle of A* in English when the person cannot explain the difference between a noun and a verb.

Add to that regulation and need for some "controlled anarchy" (paraphrasing another poster this week on domestic electric qualifications) and it's not a pretty picture. I'll stop before I get into major rant mode and look for my nitro tablets.

Oh S##t and then there's the pensioner revolt in Devon over council tax....

Where does this lead and what's it got to do with sailing - well, sailing used to be and still is (just) my sanity check/escape from this mad mad world. Trouble is the bureaucrats are closing in (AIS, retina scans for passports).

Blimey are the pubs open yet?


<hr width=100% size=1>Rgds
Phil
 
Re: Now I resent the Jibe

Don't be so hard on yourself. You are not responsible for OTHER PEOPLE'S kids. If you've brought your own up and they've turned out as kind, honest & law abiding citizens then well done as they have a lot of distractions outside of home that could have led them to be otherwise.
OK, we all have allowed our society to become a "Nanny State" so that parents can absolve themselves from responibility. That's why Martin has to spend time on trying to re-educate kids on Tall Ships.
What we could have done differently I don't know and I don't think we were aware, at the time, that we were allowing the mores of society to degrade in this manner.
Hopefully we will proceed on the long road towards redressing this balance. This will only get done, though, if we continually pressurise the "law makers" to ensure that they know how we feel. If we don't then I agree, we are all to blame./forums/images/icons/blush.gif
Sorry if this sounds pompous /forums/images/icons/crazy.gif

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I Agree

<Sorry if this sounds pompous> not at all!

It is a very sad reflection on the state of the UK.

But there are some bright spots... we maybe have the germ of a big Council Tax revolt; A new party is forming to represent the Older generation, & we should do very well in the Sailing at the Olympics.



poter


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Re: All the kids & the crew

Great idea. That is exactly how I got started into sailing, via an invitation to my school from the owner of Theodora, a Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter on loan to OYC, for 3 people to go on the 1962 Tall Ships Race. I went, was totally hooked and have been obsessed with sailing ever since. I just wonder how rich I would be by now if that hadn't happened. (dry humour!).

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Re: Now I resent the Jibe

I wasn't trying to say the Law is an ass, it was a genuine comment that we hear so much about lack of public support (heard nothing saw nothing), that it seems strange that the 'system' makes it difficult for all concerned. This acts in favour of the accused who gets lucky if witnesses refuse to turn up.

As you say what makes the kids do it. I have kids and grandkids, they don't do it, when I was a kid I didn't do it either. What was different was NO 'political correctness', we had respect for the police, for teachers and our elders. We had the cane at school or the slipper and even the mildest teachers were a dab hand with a ruler or the corner of a book. The local bobby (remember them?) would stand for NO nonsense and many infringements would be dealt with 'on the spot'.



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Re: What makes the kids do it!

If you watched the Matthew Parris documentary the other week you may get some idea. Those that watched will remember he returned to Tyne & Wear where he took part in a documentary some years earlier. He met up with some of the people from the earlier program. Some he talked to told him how they were on Prescription drugs, typically Prozac, to combat the hopelessness they feel from their environment. To keep their kids under control the feed them their own control, commonly Ritolin. In his words " A large proportion of the population is being drugged by the state."

Many will say that they have, the option, to dig themselves out of the depression but let me tell you that it is not that easy. It is a different world, that those who have not experienced it, cannot really get to grips with. I have known many people who believe that their place is to be whatever they are, maybe low paid, factory workers, or something similar. What do they do when the factory closes & their skills are not required anymore. It is hard to dig yourself out of a situation when, for the whole of your life, you have been brainwashed into thinking, thats where you belong.

Now if you were a kid from that kind of background, how hard would it be, to make something of yourself.

We take some & put them on a large yacht with 10-18 other kids & show them that they can become a "valued" mamber of a team. Its the "team work" aspect that we concentrate on. The medium of sailing is a fantastic way of bringing this out.

The change in the kids from when they arrive on board, at the beginning of the week, to when the get leave, is amazing. They walk a different walk, with their heads held high, knowing, themselves better than they did when they arrived, knowing their abilities, knowing that they have something valuable to offer. Not all the kids we take come from this type of background & that is the strength of the organisation. When you put a mix of backgrounds together they draw on each others strengths.

From my point of view its a lot of fun & I get the chance to sail boats in the 60ft to 75ft bracket that I wouldn't normally.

Martin


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Re: Now I resent the Jibe

Remember the Police houses, scattered around the town, housed the bobbies, which ment they always knew what was going on in there community. They spoke to local people when off duty, his wife spoke to other wives, never remember that much domestic violence then. Wether there presence made a difference I wonder, then it cost little, and gave a high visibility Police presence.

Brian

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the police house on the corner

I not only remember it I dated the bobbies daughter for a while! Oh and where my parents moved to later, the policeman's wife was my mother's hairdresser. When my father, then about 75, had problems with a neighbour and was pushed over and kicked, the local bobby sorted it (I had a go too I might add). Within 8 weeks the a###hole and his wife moved, try doing that now!

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Re: The policemans Wifes!!

What wifes - the 3 police officers I have been related to are all divorced/seperated, and most of the others I have met are also a bit disreputable.
There most be some good 'uns, but the cops today seem to be very remote from
1. the communities they serve
and more worringly
2. the reality that most of us live.

The solution.
Must start at the top, politicians - how the hell can they call themselves honourable / right honourable - surely a breach of the trades descriptions act.
Judges - have they ever visited planet earth

Burn the lot! - the revolution starts here!

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Re: What makes the kids do it!

It didn't seem hard when I did it. My dad was a truck driver, we didn't have money and lived in the poor part of town. I had a car at 17 (given to me by the garage I worked at evenings and weekends, it was easier than them taking it to the scrap yard and I got it running enough to use it). I was 18 before my dad could afford his first car though, until then he biked to work. I worked from about 13 onwards, it was what you did then when christmas presents were not top of the range computers, TVs, mountain bikes etc. My first boat (I was 8) was an old galvanised bath, used on the local river (which fortunately wasn't too deep!)

Team work was learned in the Cubs, then the Scouts. Where are they now? When I was a kid almost everyone joined.

I applaud what you are doing, it really is worthwhile and I am pleased to hear the youngsters pay the same regardless of background. I don't like the idea that they should be 'given' that opportunity because they are serial 'Joy' riders - now there is a word that really gets up my nose!




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Re: What makes the kids do it!

I think you have proved my point. Life for a lot of these people is so far removed from the mainstream experience that it is almost impossible for most of us to to understand. I'm not trying to make excuses for the behaviour, just trying to give you some understanding why. Some people are more resilient & able than others. In different circumstances we may be pleased to state that we are not all the same.

By the way the kids we take are not offered places because of what they've done. Places are offered on the basis of who applies. Youth Leaders, Teachers, Police & Social Workers suggest, to the kids, that they apply, if they think there may be some benefit to the kids. Many of our Skippers & Afterguard started as trainees & have worked there way up. My kids go & I hope they're not Yobs & Vandals. It does them good too.

Applause is the last thing I deserve. Like I said its a lot of fun & incredibly rewarding. I get all my satisfaction from that.

Martin

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Now we're cooking.....You're talking about the organisational capabilities of successive governments, local councils and forward planning.......We used to have a straightforward situation whereby the magistrates court was bolted onto each and every major police station in the towns. Someone re-organised it. and closed some of the police stations and smaller courts. Then someone re-organised that and closed a few more.
There was obviously more room for some re-organisation so someone split adults from youths.
Someone else decided there was need for re-organisation and split traffic offences from criminal offences.
Someone else decided to paint the youth courts pink and give them soft chairs.

Now we've all been been well and truly organised, there's a police station far away from where most people live, a magistrates court twenty miles from there, a crown court twenty miles the other way and a coroners court forty miles away, Oh, except on Tuesday afternoons every other week when it becomes a youth court. The CPS admin is thirty miles from the poilice admin and theyre equally forty miles from the court. All the police officers spend days driving between these buildings rarely bumping into the public but stopping briefly to change the film in the traffic camera which funds the vehicle that they drive.

I hope I haven't depressed you too much! I'm going to anti-foul my boat....

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Update

Having arranged my working week around having to take a day out for the court hearing next Monday, I have just been told it is now postponed, reason and new date as yet unknown 'but they are booking May/June court times now...

I really can see why people do not get involved, I've now given another series of dates when I am definitely NOT available, but this is now going to hang around for months, all for a couple of young thugs who were even caught in the act at the time by the police! Is this defence tactics, delay until witnesses either say sod it or can no longer remember what happened?

Yours very p####d off

Robin

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