Devastating news for some, the final episode of the Australian Soap Opera Neighbours was completed on Friday 10th June 2022 and will be aired in the UK on channel 5 on Monday 1st August 2022, not that I will be watching, but like it or loathe it, the programme has enjoyed a tea time slot for thirty seven years, I know that, because it was launched in the same year that Karen and I were married. Fifty-four year old Kylie Minogue was a teenage car mechanic in the soap the last time I sat down and watched an episode. It has always amused me that the show begins and ends with the familiar ditty
Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours
With a little understanding, you can find the perfect blend
Neighbours should be there for one another
That’s when good neighbours become good friends.
With lyrics like that, Ramsey Street sounds like the perfect place to live, however, as soon as the ideologic tones drift into the first scene, the friendly neighbours in Ramsey street get stuck in abusing each other, having affairs behind each others backs, bullying, cheating, stealing, and even murdering one another as everyday life is lived out in typical soap land.
I find it irritating that soap opera’s appear to see themselves as offering some kind of therapy to people who are struggling with life and I’m sure that their ability to depict the experiences of people living through some of life’s most difficult traumas has a place and is helpful to many. My problem is, that in the same way as the recent media accounts of parties at number 10 Downing Street, followed by emphatic denials that they even happened, followed by claims that the abhorrent behaviour of others was disgraceful and shouldn’t go unpunished, to the revelation that so many people in authority were involved, to the final approach, which seems to be “let’s ignore it all, it happened, but it doesn’t matter any more, feels to me like the script of a soap opera.
Like a great many other people in the world, I have a degree of power and authority in my chosen vocation, and I openly admit, that I am sometimes misguided, I make decisions in haste, I think that others are doing things and never bother to check and in the end, I say things that I later regret, I set out with the best of intentions, and fail to deliver, I make mistakes and I even deliberately do things I know are wrong. I’m not evil, I am human and I openly proclaim that I am not perfect! And sadly, never will be.
Look at the words of the second verse of the Neigbours theme tune
Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours
Just a friendly wave each morning, helps to make a better day
Neighbours, need to get to know each other
That’s when good neighbours become good friends.
That is exactly how the world should be in my opinion, where human beings go out of their way to make the world a better place for all to live in harmony. It saddens me, that seconds after the perfect picture is painted life goes on as normal. I sit at my desk each week and try to influence life through my best attempts at words of wisdom and hope that they resonate with readers, the problem is, that if these words are ever going to make any difference, they need to influence a change of behaviour. You are right to say “but we live in the real world and life isn’t ideal. That is where God, in the power of The holy Spirit comes in and helps, supports, directs and encourages and all it takes is a simple prayer.
Prayer
God of love, in the power of your Holy Spirit, help me to amend my ways, so that I might make a difference in the world through the decisions I make and the way I live, not for the sake of my own ego, but so that the world may be a better place. Amen