NOW I COULD ALWAYS BE GOOD

I didn’t really know my grandparents. Neither grandfather was alive by the time I was born and my grandmothers didn’t last long into my childhood. Angus was only a baby when the last of the quartet died. So, one of the things that fascinates me about Mediterranean living is the way the extended family – the relatives and generations – pull together and mix.

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You look around as the evening wears on towards midnight and there are aunties and little children, grandads and teens. They come and go. The frail are helped home. And babies are bounced from bosom to bosom. Everyone knows everyone - or is related to someone. It all seems very civilised. Contrast this with waking up to news that someone tasked with maintaining discipline has had to stand down because his own behaviour fell far short of the standards expected of those in public life.

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Clearly, societal pressure can work both ways. But, in most cases in communities right around this inland sea, the bonds of respect - created by close family and friends - have much to do with putting the brakes on people’s bad behaviour and creating positive incentives to behave.

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I know village life is not for everyone and can become claustrophobic. I well understand the pull of anonymity when you have been brought up in a goldfish bowl – or you simply have found yourself swimming against the prevailing tide or without the social capital to be free to live your own best life.

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But I was lucky in my parents and position. And, while I can look back fondly on self-policing in the provinces it, obviously, wasn’t always a good thing for everyone.

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Living in Thurso in the seventies was a bit like when Local Hero met Whisky Galore. Anyone who oversaw anything - from schools to banks, doctors to white fish landings - had to come from, or through, Inverness. If they were coming by train it took over five hours [and there were only 2 trains a day and none on Sundays]. So, the good burghers of Britain’s most northerly mainland town were gifted ample time to ensure things were tidy and trig before the inspector called.

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A lot of positive self-regulation went on. But, while it wasn’t quite the Wild West - and may even sound idyllic - it had its disadvantages. It’s no surprise a classmate acquired an impressive collection of signs warning all comers to abstain from entering dangerous and classified nuclear establishments. I avoided compulsory religious education by getting myself thrown out of the class and then, simply, refusing to go back. Mum would go off to sing at ceilidhs - and come home in the grey dawn from somewhere where the light of licensing laws never shone.

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It relied on who you knew and your place in the pecking order. And, because it often depended on privilege, it could be prone to manipulation and bullying. It meant people got away with ignoring the rules that didn’t suit them. It might not have been as blatant - or as destructive of good order - as the current crowd masquerading as a government in Westminster – and, I’m sorry, but I respectfully disagree if you think even petty rule breaking by any party isn’t important. But it meant health and safety was something rather more theoretical than enforced. That slightly swaggering, free-wheeling, dick-swinging approach cost lives in many circumstances and across many sectors: from reckless, drunk driving to – and particularly obvious in a community dependent on the nuclear industry - a mates’ culture that trumped sense and overrode adherence to the rules.

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All those pitfalls persist. And we have added some new challenges to the mix.

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So, I worry about the modern world. And I worry about construction.

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Today’s young people are growing up influenced by groups and behaviours they see on screen: a virtual world seemingly beyond the policing of parents and the authorities. A space where peers may be a pretence and children are groomed by online perverts, hounded by anonymous trolls or having dangerous images flashed before their eyes purely for the benefit of multi-national marketing.

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And I worry about the built environment because of its all-lads-together, clubby nature and what I think of as the ‘public path principle’. It goes like this: there are rules at every turn - regulations to fill many more pages than War and Peace. But people, more often than not, being what we are, take the easiest route, wearing a groove in the grass rather than following the proper [but more awkward] path around the park.

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If we expect rules to be followed – and let’s not forget they have a purpose and are not a pick ‘n’ mix we can choose - they have to be clear, comprehensible and fair. That places a duty on communities like the Association for Project Safety [APS]. We have to keep on trying to make the rules both sane and easy to follow as well as applicable, equally, from top to bottom

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That is why APS is engaged in making the regulations flowing from the Building Safety Act clear and workable. And why, closer to home, we are working to update our own governance so it’s fit for purpose. President Jonathan and I will be coming back to this latter point in coming weeks but, for now suffice to say, the aim is to encourage members to get involved, and to have a greater say, in the association.

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It falls to each and every member of the APS family - from people at the start of their career paths and those approaching journey’s end - to be that community that nurtures good behaviour. Because we have to build good behaviour. But, in the end, t’s not good enough to do the right thing only when in granny’s gimlet glare or because we are mandated into it. The fear of getting caught is one thing but true responsibility comes when we live up to our own rules.

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Real lives depend on it. And us.