Kendal Mayor Cllr Andy Blackman says that everyone needs to show acts of kindness and compassion to protect our community

IF I had lived a few generations ago, before everything was motorised, automated and technological, much of my life would have been public. I would go shopping using public transport, do my laundry in the public launderette, have a bath in the public baths, read and research in the public library, watch films in the public picture house, relax in the public park, have a drink in the public house....

Now much of what was public has become private. At home I have my own 42-inch ‘cinema screen’, wine rack, bath and shower, washing machine, shelves of books, and in this age of the internet I don’t have to leave the house to shop, and if I do I have my own means of transport.

With the benefits of social media I don’t even have to leave the house to make and maintain friendships.

It seems to me that these advances in our engineered, automated and technologically driven lives have come at a cost.

The public meeting points of our forbears were the places where lives collided and where neighbours became friends and a sense of belonging to a community was shaped, felt and understood.

During my formative years my own personal sense of identity and well being was in part shaped through being part of the local village cricket club.

These were the days when ‘if someone caught a cold the whole community sneezed’. Nowadays there is the danger that if someone two or three doors away down the street passes away it could be weeks before I might know about it.

Our lives have become as detached from one another as the houses that we live in.

Like us all, I have been touched by the response of service, love, kindness, compassion and generosity shown by the emergency services and local communities to the recent events in London, at the Manchester Arena and more recently the Grenfell Tower Block in North Kensington.

I have been reminded of Kendal’s response to Storm Desmond, which manifest the need for people in difficult circumstances in our town to be able to look to their community for support and reciprocally the responsibility on all of us to be aware of the needs of others in our communities.

The ‘storms of life’ can hit any one of us at any time; some for a short time others for longer.

Being set apart from community life can lead to loneliness, isolation and consequently impact mental well being, an issue currently receiving much public and media attention.

The Alzheimer sufferer and their carer, the vulnerable school child, the recently bereaved, the ‘minority’ family, the single parent, the elderly neighbour - all need to feel they are part of a responsive community outside of themselves.

In our society today, in which the influence and support of the extended family is largely fragmented, the need for community life becomes ever so much more necessary. It has been said that our friends are the family we choose for ourselves.

Our workplace, our school, church, sports club or other common interest groups such as walking group, bridge club, amateur dramatics, the regulars at the local pub or social club - all are community meeting points in the warp and weft of Kendal’s rich tapestry of life.

Let us find ways to ‘love our community’ through acts of service, kindness and generosity, driven by the spirit of love.

Maybe we should seek inspiration from a quote from John F Kennedy’s speech in 1961 and ask not what my town or community can do for me, but ask what I can do for my town or community.