Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

For anyone interested in professional engineering content read no further. This blog from myself will not deal with life on site, but is a random tangent of life living as a member of the military in London.

This week on the way home from work I popped into a local take-away (for the first time). Whilst waiting I couldn’t help but over hear three young men complaining about the state of British foreign politics, the theft of other countries resources and the fact they were under constant surveillance from the security services. At this point I should have probably decided to wait for my lamb kofta and walk out of the door. I didn’t. I decided to try and engage with the three young men, to find out why they held the beliefs that they did and possibly have a reasoned conversation / debate surrounding the issues. Unfortunately this didn’t occur; I was confronted by a stonewall. I became slightly hopeful when one of the three mentioned that his thoughts were part of a thesis and who was I to question it? Perhaps it would be peer reviewed and I could read it on publication? No. It wasn’t that kind of thesis. In the end I did have a reasoned conversation, but with a bystander, which was very positive. Having concluded my conversation I left the three young men to enjoy the rest of their evening. When I left them they were still certain that they were being pursued by the security services, that the UK’s aim was to de-stabilise the world and that the September 11^th disaster was a conspiracy theory.

The area in which I had this conversation was Kingston. The average house price is well over £500,000 and the borough has previously been classified as the third least deprived borough in London. The individuals I had the conversation with were articulate in their responses. I suppose my questions and concerns with regards to this encounter are: why do people in such a privileged area hate the country they are from (although acknowledging they themselves may not be privileged) and at what point should such a hatred become a concern with respect to security. How can they be engaged? It’s certainly not by a random chap having a chat in a kebab shop!