Low life | 28 February 2013

Neil Clark’s wonderful piece three weeks ago, ‘Running out of sweeties’ (The Spectator, 16 February), has lingered in my mind. He pointed to a type of Englishness characterised by kindness, eccentricity and a complete absence of malice, which used to be known, he said, as ‘sweet’. Like rare and delicate flowers, our nation’s sweeties are facing extinction, he claimed, in the harsher economic and social climate. These holy innocents see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, and are always the first to volunteer, yet today’s rigorously equal society allows them no room. Sad.

I’ve known sweeties from all walks of life. There used to be more in the country than the town. But Neil Clark is right: there are fewer around. I’ve been checking on it. Take last Saturday night, for example. I had a date with a woman I’d met just once before, back in July. She’d sent a text suggesting I take her out for the evening.