Tuesday 17th September

When I was a small boy, a very naughty boy I hasten to reassure you, my mother would despair of me and insist that if I carried on in this fashion (lying, cheating, generally being wicked) “A road sweeper I would become’ or ‘end up as.’   This was the very worst thing in her eyes.  Strange that ending up in prison or as a tramp were not held so lowly in her opinion as a road sweeper , but naughty boy that I was, it was the humble sweeper of roads I was destined to become.

Now, I have never seriously contemplated sweeping roads as a career, with or without my mother’s bleassing.  At times I have been ‘between jobs’, and considered being a Postman, or some other complete change of career, but have never sunk so low as to resort to the broom.

There was a very successful series on TV in the seventies, or maybe early eighties called ‘Bread’, where one of the characters, the father of the dysfunctional family, was a road sweeper.  He got lots of laughs as he pushed his trolley around the streets of Liverpool, so the general opinion was shared that of all jobs this must be the lowest.

I used to for a few years start work ridiculously early and would catch a bus before six in the morning.  There was a female road sweeper, about forty-something, thin and wiry, who swept the streets vigorously around the bus stop.  She knew us all, and would always be there with a happy ‘Good Morning.’  I used to think she must be a bit bonkers.

And now, when I walk the dogs there is a young black man who sweeps the streets.  He is polite, assiduous in his duties, smartly dressed and out in all weathers.  The thought strikes me that my mother was wrong.  This is a vitally important job, and we should look up to, and not down upon, these lucky sweepers of roads.  You are out in the fresh air, have a uniform, and really is pushing a broom any worse than pushing a pen, or the keys on a computer?