A Sense of Community

Last week I went to a funeral. It’s not a particularly unusual thing to do, and as you get older it unfortunately becomes more painfully frequent. This particular one was the funeral of Caty Taylor – my Dad’s aunt and therefore (I think) my Great Aunt. She was 85 when she died and had led a very full and interesting life – a life that a short, elearning-related blog post could never do justice to, but please stick with it.

She was born in Greece in 1926 and grew up partly there and in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. And this is the first of many events, decisions and connections that eventually led to me being related to her. The biggest of these events was undoubtedly World War 2, and the Allies decision to pursue the German forces through North Africa. My Dad’s Uncle Norman was serving with the British Army there, which directly led to him meeting this young, beautiful Greek girl in Egypt. It’s difficult to imagine how hard this must have been, with Caty’s parents probably being none too keen on their daughter dating a foreign soldier who was unlikely to be around for very long. But this must have been nothing compared to the difficult and brave decision Caty then took – to stay with this soldier and return to England with him.

Back in London, they married and eventually had kids – Marion and Michael – but their initial arrival caused quite a stir amongst Norman’s (and therefore my Dad’s) friends and family. To say that the majority of them were less than welcoming to this young Greek girl, who only had a basic grasp of English, would be a pretty accurate statement. In fact, my Dad and my Grandad were (I’m extremely proud to say) 2 of the only ones to welcome her with open arms. They included her in whatever they did, and Caty became a little bit of a surrogate sister to my Dad – their ages were only 5 years apart after all.

When my Mum and Dad met in the early 50’s and subsequently got married in 1956, the first place they lived together was in the flat on the top level of Norman and Caty’s house in Shepherd’s Bush. And it was from here that the community spirit engendered particularly by Caty’s outgoing nature, and her desire to make others feel included in the way she had been by my Dad and Grandad, really started to grow. She went out of her way to make sure friends and neighbours on their street were doing OK, that they felt able to call round for a chat whenever they wanted. She would usually cook for them – a side of her I remember well, as whenever we visited we always left feeling like we’d have no need to eat for the next couple of days. Caty also loved to visit the local shops, including all the charity shops – another way that she was able to give back to the community that had welcomed her more than some members of her new family had.

And it’s this sense of community that was apparent at her funeral last week. Several of the people there (I don’t want to call them mourners as, whilst we are all so sad to have lost her, our lives were richer for having known her) were more than just friends. They were part of her network; her community; her group of friends that were part of a community from which no-one was excluded.

I think this is something that up until a few years ago had been gradually disappearing from ‘normal’ life. As people became more wrapped up with what they could do from the comfort of their own home or office, they forgot that they had neighbours or friends with whom they didn’t seem to talk any more. I’m as bad as anyone else at this and still only tend to exchange small-talk with my closet neighbours, or only see some of my closest friends very infrequently. But what do millions of people now do daily – they join and interact with a multitude of online communities, and in doing so can create a similar sense of inclusion with people that, ordinarily, they would never have conversed with.

So that’s something that I’m going to try changing. I’m going to keep increasing my involvement with the online communities I’m already a part of, but I’m also going to keep Caty’s lifetime of experiences in mind by trying to become more involved with local, offline communities. It’s easy to say, trickier to do, but with a little determination, is far from impossible.

And I’m always going to be thinking of Caty when I think of these communities. Caty Taylor – my truly Great Aunt.