What have the Romans ever done for me?

Posted on November 05, 2009 at 06:44 PM

"I never use Council services “ an acquaintance of mine, Peter, said to me recently, “apart from having my bin collected”. Peter is retired, likes to garden, walk, play golf and has an active life.

Typically he gets up about nine, uses the bathroom, showers, and fills the kettle for his cup of tea. Usually he will walk to the local shop for the paper, only becoming aware of the footpath if there is a fault in it. Sometimes he will drive to a shopping centre, and would be annoyed if he encountered a faulty traffic light or was delayed due to road maintenance works. Some afternoons he goes for a walk in the local park.

On his way there he hardly notices the workman cutting the grass in the open space in his own estate. He did notice though, and was glad that the mess left on the green space after the recent Halloween bonfire had been cleared away, by somebody. In the park he passes by the playground, where he sometimes brings his grandchildren  to play. His grandchildren also go with him to the public swimming pool, but he often goes to the pool on his own; it’s fairly cheap and helps the arthritis.

He puts a lot of time into his garden, and often brings a bag or two of grass clippings and other garden stuff to the Green Re-cycling Centre. Once a week he and a friend play a round of golf at Grange Castle, the public golf course; last week he was happy to see that the load of full plastic refuse sacks thrown on the grass verge at the entrance had been removed, by somebody.

Recently his trip to Grange Castle takes him less time; he drives there along the Outer Ring Road, a fine road he thinks and assumes, wrongly, that it has been built by the Government or the National Roads Authority. He doesn’t drive much at night recently as his night vision isn’t what it was. But when he does drive in the dark, he is glad of the public lighting on the roads; he gets annoyed if the light nearest to his house is not working, but he doesn’t report it-he wouldn’t know who to ring.

Now that he is retired, he can spend more time in the Library, and recently has been using that laptop his family gave him for his 65^th much more; it was that free IT course he got in the Library which got him going.

As I said, Peter lives a very active life; sure he never has the time to use any of the Council services. Apart from having his bin collected that is- and now that he is a pensioner he gets a supply of free bin tags, through the Council’s waiver scheme.

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