The Value of Community
Last week, my four month old puppy, Morag, got a fright on her daily walk on the nearby forestry road and ran off into the undergrowth. For the next 33 hours, she was missing in the woods – occasionally spotted in the surrounding area, before vanishing back into the dense terrain. It was undoubtedly the most horrible experience in my life, and the feeling of helplessness and heartbreak is one that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.
However, when I learned she had gone missing, I immediately posted a cry for assistance on our local Facebook community forum here on Arran – and was absolutely blown away by the outpouring of support and assistance we received. For the next day and a half, well over a dozen volunteers came out in the torrential rain and howling wind to search the area for our wee Morag. By and large, these were complete strangers to me, but they were willing to sacrifice their free time (and comfort) to look for someone else’s missing puppy. Some stayed out til midnight, and returned again at 6am to continue the search; some people brought camping equipment; some brought food and hot drinks to keep us going. When we finally found Morag and were able to bring her home, the sheer volume of relieved messages we received was overwhelming.
This sense of community solidarity comes at a time when we’re finally starting to re-open our pubs and bars – places that would traditionally be the hub of a community, but have been sadly shuttered for all of 2021. It’s easy to assume that community spirit was another loss to this pandemic, but events like this show the contrary. Now that we’re starting to take our tentative steps back towards normality, it’s worth thinking about your community. Do you have a neighbourhood forum? Does your elderly neighbour need help collecting her shopping or medicine, or even just need some human interaction for a few minutes here and there?
I’ll always be incredibly grateful to the Arran community for stepping up when we needed their help; and for reminding me that, even in the middle of all this collective trauma, our communities are what truly matter, and should be cherished as such. Traditionally, local pubs have been at the heart and soul of British communities: a place to relax with friends; to pick up local news; or just to sit and have a quiet beer. Unfortunately these community hubs have been lost to the pandemic, but my recent experience has shown me that the sense of community that you would find in your local is still there, if a little diluted. I know that if I had been able to take everyone who helped us find Morag out for a beer in one of the pubs on the island then the first round would have been on me. Although things are starting to open up, please remember your local pubs will need your support in the coming months if they’re to have a chance of survival – and when you visit them, take a moment to be grateful for the community it serves.