Day of Unity, 22 January 2017

A good Day of Unity to everyone marking it.

Something I have watched change over the years I have been here: the chain used to be mostly adults, and is now mostly schoolchildren, brought by their teachers, holding hands in a line along a bridge in January, visibly cold and enjoying it enormously.

Some people treat that as a decline — a civic act turned into a school outing. I read it the other way. A commemoration that children take part in is a commemoration that will still exist in forty years, because they will bring their own.

Traditions are transmitted by being done in front of people who are young enough to copy them.

A good day to you and yours, and to the teachers standing at the ends of the line counting heads.