Nights of Broken Glass

The damage to the Rood Window of the church a couple of weeks ago was, unfortunately, not the last event of its kind to disturb the nocturnal peace of Swanvale Halt. South of the church there is an area where the streets communicate by a series of pathways lined with hedges, and not long after the church suffered its damage that vicinity was thronged with firefighters after the hedges were set alight. This Wednesday one of the local cafés and a takeaway had their doors smashed, and apparently last night the churchyard was the venue for fire extinguishers (not ours) being let off and more glass bottles being thrown around. The police are paying more attention to the centre of the village again, but of course the chance of them being present when anything is actually happening is vanishingly remote. 

It doesn't take much to make a community miserable: it takes a single person, perhaps, with a suitable implement and a disarranged will, going from door to door smashing all the glass in sight. The whole incident might take no more than a couple of minutes, but the effects of disruption and disturbance last far longer than it takes to cause the damage.

To make a community happy and orderly, however, doesn't take policing. It takes everyone refraining from destructive behaviour, every night. It takes nothing happening, consistently and regularly. It takes everyone acting sensibly. It's a bigger ask than we might think.