THE FEAR OF LEISURE vv

P^Hsonally,

I shall begin to of i .^orry seriously about the problems when 1 see some signs of the For as long as I can remember, iClans and sociologists have been c0n Cerned about what is going to happen ^ Machines do more and more of less VV?r^ ar>d there is?theoretically? ^ess left for us to do. So far, ^ women 1 know work h^rd a'^ ^an their mothers did. Their do as much school work in thre S as we ^ 'n a wee^And t^e a working week for a manual country is actually an hoUr e,r 'n this t^lan 't was ten years ago. ?n^er So re seems to be no cause for alarm yet. But any alarm for the fiitUr J.Ustuseful if it obliges us to think abnuf '.s

'eisi?SUre p0lit*:

tiearian^

chjuer

r^n

W0r,Verage

present.

a

* saw a cohk?'ears a8?> in the

grey

of

eac^ s'^e anc* a sma^ tin can down the middle According to the caption, it was afternoon in a northern city. years ago, driving through Wilt-

?y k u-ses lcking of

Sun^

photograph

rain, with small

street, on

a

Th^

shire on stopD ?ar'y *n a

Sunday evening, we county town and found one c^fe n ^ vyas uncomfortable, served abom^611' "N[0 'nat>le coffee but had a juke-box.

No .ancing,"

to

a

said a notice on the wall, Last month, attempting

pa'nS'n?-" ^alf"ar>-hour

^ith

us?and particularly most youngsters?have the least to do and the The puritans who most time to do it. decided that Sunday was to be a day of rest and no play, saw to it that the day was safely filled with work, although not so labelled. Now, the majority of us who no longer go to the church services or to Sunday school, are left with an empty space. Grown-ups, and country children can fill it well enough. The city teenager cannot. Public schools, and Oxford and Cambridge, have always understood that adolescents have superabundant physical energy, and are expensively organised to provide outlets for it. State schools are not. In a way, this is understandable. If state schools had spent as much time on organised games of

most

organised people's

and

can

state

new

on

tax

are as

necessary a

part

for other children as well as their own, build them deliberately into the as

history,

system.

organised games at school are only beginning. As soon as one has left

But a

it becomes difficult to find other people who want to play the same game as oneself, at the same time. Clubs are the obvious solution, in a large city, they tend to be far

enough

agreeably a

games

education

of

school,

in

middle-class

that their payers would have protested money was being wasted. Now, perhaps, we can persuade them to see that

a

rnornin8

schools,

public

as

town, we ?Pen one narrow sandwich bar accornmodation for about eight ' and comfortable room for none.

SundaSs Pe?pi

by Eirlys Roberts Sunday shows up the problem of leisure most dramatically. This is when

but,

away on the outskirts. What one should learn, young, are the individual sports?riding, skating, sailing, climbing, water-skiing, skiing. All they need is skill, which is easiest to acquire as a child, and somewhere to exercise it. After they have left school, there is no

why teenagers, or anyone else, should be provided with facilities for their sports free. It is not money, primarily, of which we are short. And for the teenagers most people are worried about, youth clubs, community centres and state-aided institutions probably have a dislikeable flavour. What we need is sudden gestures like that, for instance, of the directors of the Belle Vue stadium in Manchester who are hoping to be able to throw open the stadium to teenagers at a nominal charge and under expert guidance one or two evenings each week. This is the bright idea of a few imaginative people. There must be hundreds more. But we need more than scattered ideas, however imaginative. There are about eight million people in this country between the ages of 10 and 19. But there are only, for example, about 28

reason

ice-skating rinks, 14 roller-skating r'nf ( and 82 bowling alleys. We need n10. There are over 60 registered water* ing clubs, but the charges are not che Many

more

of

us

now

get

a

^}

night's skiing holiday abroad. jS fortnight is very little. And therLe tri such a thing as artificial snow, and f? are plenty of slopes in this country fl(

to put it on. There are hundreds | miles of canals and rivers, in p'ea?L\i * country near industrial towns. few of them are used for pleasure' '

|

Punt'^

These?riding, skiing, sailing, water-skiing, climbing, ice-skating-^ exotic status-providing sports, which ^ middle and upper classes provide ^ keep their leisured teenagers

mischief.

It

seems

reasonable

c? ..

private enterprise or a bination of both (involving the 0f | ordinarily successful Central Counci | Physical Recreation) should do ^ se\{-

state or

for all leisured teenagers. It seems evident that if you give a lot of lelS to a lot of young, vigorous create .f you must provide outlets for physical energy. Or you'll have

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