Love thy Neighbour?

Not anymore it seems.

I was reading an article last night (from under the duvet - attempting to fend off the subzero temperatures upstairs) in Decembers edition of Smallholder magazine written by a couple of beekeepers from the Wirral. The article was not about bees but a more human subject - that of helping thy neighbour.

Now when I were a lass (she says - puffing chest out, smoothing down apron and folding arms) every single farmer in our wee corner of Moray used to help one and other - no matter what was going on - from picking stones, to planting, to roguing the barley to harvesting and baling and tattie picking - everyone would come together. All the local kids would help too. Being as young as I was, I wasn't party to the agreements made between the different farms but I do know that when we increased our wee holding to a size where we needed help, we got it, and in return dad or mum or the entire family would (at some point in the future) toodle off to a neighbour and help out. That was the way it was. No financial reward (except during tattie picking time when we kids earned the princely sum of two pounds per day!).

Back to our Beekeepers from the Wirral. Now they are projecting much and such the same image of days gone by albeit in North Wales. "We notice that another neighbour, busy from morning till night, always has time to spare for others, getting in their hay crop, although his own lies waiting to be baled, mucking out a cow byre for a sick friend when his own sheep wait to be sheared, taking a neighbours stock to market when the wall on his own farm has collapsed and needs repair: he always has time for others without any thought of repayment. This is the old and traditional way of doing things, but seemingly not taught nowadays. Mores the pity"

I'm not sure that I agree that its simply a case of 'its not taught now' - I know a lot of good folk that do teach it and pass it on - perhaps I am naieve but I think its down to more than one factor.

The mechanisation of farming for one - a farmer simply does not need a whole host of folk at every occasion nowadays. Remember tattie 'holidays'? Good lord, one farm could employ every single kid for a ten mile radius and a couple of adults to boot! Now its done with a couple of folk and a couple of tractors and the kids now look on and can't see what all the fuss was about. Same with harvesting. This past hearst, I watched the local farmer and his son combine and bale the feild next to us in one morning. One morning. It took us two days and two families to do one 75 acre feild in 1982. Mechanisation has distanced us from our neighbours, if not through physical miles, then certainly through communication.

I'm not denying that a helping and knowledgeable hand isn't essential in smallholding or farming, on the contrary its part and parcel, but there is another element to this shift in attitude that I am positive bears thinking about. And heres my cynical side coming out. Independence. I think, to a fair extent, folk expect too much help now. We're mollycoddled to the point where we just can't do things for ourselves. We just expect help when we get stuck. Alright some just expect help when they have something needing doing and that leads to an equal and opposite reaction - you'll soon piss off all those around you. From making a meal from scratch and not from a supermarket packet to fixing your own *insert broken thing*. I'm not saying you have to become Gordon Ramsay or some mechanical guru overnight but instead of sitting there, get up, learn what it is you have to do to fix the situation and get going. Even if you fail, even if you make a mistake - you'll have tried. In return you might find that more folk will offer help because they see that you're actually giving it a go.

You simply can't do everything though, there are only twenty four hours in a day and having to say No is unfortunately an inevitable part of life. Our Beekeepers farming friend willingly sacrificed his own time to help those around him. He could have said, just for once, "no, sorry, my wall really needs repairing" and as he's a nice bloke anyway folk would have understood and likely offered to help. Is it true that what goes around, comes around? What about those karmic blocks? Those folk that readily accept help but then don't pass it on or even worse, bemoan the fact that the helper didn't meet their standards. Is saying No a general result borne from bad experience? (and oi! Don't sit there all saintly, muttering about how I should just let it flow over me and that after all helping out is all about 'doing' as oppose to 'what it does for you' - as I can almost guarantee you've been pissed off the same one way once or twice too..)

When does saying No become habit rather than a need? Has saying No become second nature rather than concious thought and where do you draw the line?