I’m lucky enough to live near Eastleigh in Hampshire, and I often need to go into Southampton for work. If I get a chance at lunchtime I go for a stroll on Southampton Common, a large open space close to the city centre. One of my favourite parts of the Common is Southampton Old Cemetery, an area of overgrown graves and tombstones that has largely been given over to wildlife, but where you can still wander around and read the inscriptions, still see the little details of other people’s lives and deaths.
Among the overgrown memorials that I wandered past last week was one to a former mayor of Southampton, who, his headstone recorded, “died early on Sunday morning”. Why was this important, so important that it was carved in stone along with his name and dates and political achievements? Because for most people, it’s the little things that really matter, not the big ideas. Yes, people care about the environment, but generally they’re more interested in the smell from their drains than in the melting polar ice cap. People care about the deficit, but they want to know if bread is cheaper in the local Co-op or the out of town Morrisons. People, by and large, have an opinion on immigration, but unless their opinions have crossed the border of bigotry, they’re more interested in whether Vaclav next door plays music at 3am than in whether he should be in the country at all.
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