Time of Reckoning
Confidence is supposed to increase with age and experience, but this is just not true.
I have received a letter inviting me to speak [against] the planned developments at our Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment which has applied to build a couple of sheds (and—hush!—associated facilities for which it has just received funding to the tune of a few billion quid). Any building work on the AWE site is a matter of local concern, so I duly cribbed a letter from a template supplied by the peace movement and sent it off . The council considered my concerns about the potential noise impact and defilement of the landscape (sadly they can’t take into consideration that Britain, along with the USA, intends to contravene the Nonproliferation Treaty by developing new nuclear weapons) and now I have the opportunity to speak out at the next Public Meeting in Newbury on the 21st of September.
This should not be difficult, as long as I do not mention the ‘N’-word. After all, aside from the noise and the visual impact, the increased traffic endangers the lives of schoolchildren and pedestrians that use the road. The peace movement has given additional reasons and I should be able to think up some for myself. These could be the most life-threatening sheds that have ever been considered by Hampshire Council.
When I was about 12, such an occasion wouldn’t have been a problem. Back then, I was a seasoned campaigner and I did speak out in a public meeting against the proposed straightening of the river that ran through our village. Not only would this move the flooding problem away from farmland to residential areas further downstream but it would also endanger the habitats of my favourite critters. The latter wasn’t much of a point back then, but I could have swayed the committee on the former, had I not been a snotty-nosed tomboy. All I remember is indulgent snickering, although some of my arguments did crop up in the local paper afterwards. However, all of that gung-ho spirit is gone. I think that with puberty went my chutzpa, not to mention the disillusionment I’ve developed with regard to environmental policies (they all came into force—after I left). So I don’t want to go. And I certainly don’t want to go alone. Cripes, this is worse than being asked to stand in front of the class!
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Denni