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"1 from 365" By Peter Davidson

The commercial imperative rules us all. Well, maybe not all. Perhaps there is still the odd guru, remote in his rocky cave halfway to heaven in a place so remote that even Pizza Pronto might have to payout on their boasted promise of ‘It’s hot or you don’t pay.’ But I doubt it. Camberley town may be buried in remote and deepest suburban Surrey, but the commercial writ here is very strong. And I, along with everyone else in this country, am an involuntary slave to the system in which I choose to live. You might think I am about to pontificate on something profound, something deeply relevant to the human condition, but what I actually am referring to is 24 hour convenience shopping. A generation is now emerging blind into a world that never stops. It’s a pity we never miss something until it is removed. Does anyone now miss the old Sundays of not so very long ago? When the towns would be empty and devoid of hustle, bargain and stress? When Songs of Praise was the highlight of the day? Well, not my highlight I admit, but you get my drift.

The point is - that day was a pause. An enforced break, a deep breath before the next week began. I actually hated it. I railed against the closed shops, the empty towns and the very fact that everything was, well, closed! I wanted convenience. I wanted to buy whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted. And now that I have exactly that, exactly what I wanted, what I voted for, I am no longer so sure it was a great idea. But it is too late now. The milk has been well and truly spilt and there no point crying. I don’t think it will be too long now before the country will never sleep. Not even for a single day in three hundred and sixty five. And we all know what happens when people are deprived of sleep. They get cranky, irrational and downright aggressive. It’s happening already. Occurrences of road and supermarket trolley rage are no longer rare or peculiar aberrations; they are now an integral part of modern living.

I stopped to look at some fresh flowers tied with a red ribbon to a telephone post beside the side of a road - the scene of an fatal accident some years ago; the flowers are always there, always renewed, always a constant reminder of needlessly lost lives. So this Christmas day I decided to take an hour out of eating the remains of the turkey and yet another side-splitting repeat of Morecombe & Wise, to see if the town was for at least one day, asleep. And do you know, it was. I have taken some pictures to prove it. Here is Camberley town as few may remember it, as it used to be once every week on those long and boring Sundays of years ago. The high street and supermarket car parks are ghostly and empty; free from the usual crush of log-jammed cars; free of struggling shoppers aggressively manouvering incalcitrent and wayward trolleys. Empty. Empty of people that is, apart from the rubbish. Proof that the busiest workers, the cleaners and rubbish collectors were also fast asleep. The high street of one of the wealthiest towns in England was awash with the uncollected and discarded detritus of its supposedly proud inhabitants. I took some pictures to prove that too.

It was I suppose inevitable that the greatest collection of carelessly discarded waste was directly outside the prime examples of the pace of modern life - fast food burger bars. Here it swirled and lapped at the locked and closed doors like the returning tide of a polluted sea, an unwanted collection that seemed an ironic metaphor of our sadly materialistic society. The very society that I voted for, that I wished for, that I actually demanded. I wonder how long it will be before we no longer even have this solitary single day from 365 to take a pause, to take stock and consider? Not long I fear.

Peter Davidson 25/12/03

View all the photos from Peters collection at: http://home.btconnect.com/Frimley-Photogra/