Just like thousands of kids up and down the country awaiting exam results, I ripped open the envelope with mixed feelings – anticipation laced with trepidation.
Out popped my shiny new certificate. It wasn’t the result of an examination, but it had been a testing experience nonetheless. It was my brown-bin permit.
It hardly needs saying that Aberdeen City Council’s latest wheeze to fill its debt-squeezed coffers has not gone down well universally, after announcing it was going to start charging for taking away our garden refuse and grass cuttings.
But I joined this dubious club anyway by paying my £30 annual charge before the new regime kicks in next Monday.
It’s a funny thing about the human condition that I suddenly didn’t want to be left out.
It’s a pack thing, I suppose. Deep inside our psyche from stone-age days is the feeling we would rather be inside the cave than stuck outside. Still, I wasn’t totally overjoyed. But that was softened by the realisation that my relationship with the local authority had gone through a mini metamorphosis.
An earlier communication from them about the charges addressed me as “Dear Householder”. To be a mere householder seemed a rather lowly and anonymous position in the pecking order. Surely they know exactly who I am, but perhaps it costs too much to actually put our names on letters.
The payment confirmation now addressed me as “Dear Customer”. Suddenly, I had come up in the world. I was somebody at last. Now I had certain rights and privileges which are part and parcel of services rendered for cash.
So is it going to be like dealing with a private company, where they survive or perish on quality of service? Would the council’s customer care be as sharp as a lawnmower’s blade? Not necessarily, I fear. In the small print, they warned that there would be no refunds for missed collections, but they would “endeavour” to pick them up later. This doesn’t sound as good as a private sector paid-for service.
Nothing about going to the ends of the earth to earn my 30 quid. “No promises, only endeavour” – if there was a shop selling regimental mottos, that one would be gathering dust on a shelf. Endeavour is not only a useful Scrabble weapon (earning 13 points), but also a word with a huge range. There is nothing black or white about it. It can accompany both success and failure.
Sir Winston Churchill and Mrs May faced their challenges with plenty of endeavour, but look how different things turned out.
I think some of us peasants are still rebelling and refusing to cough up for the permit.
What will they do with their bags of garden rubbish? Some might venture out into the leafy lanes of Aberdeenshire and dump them there. That would leave the neighbouring authority with a bill for cleaning up. Fly-tipping is a huge issue across the north and north-east already, with councils accused of not doing enough to combat it. Many fear an explosion of grass and leaves dumped illegally by permit pirates.
Leaves are the bane of my life, too. My brown bin bulges with them at certain times of the year. And none of them are my own leaves – they leap off towering council-owned trees near my humble abode and carpet the garden.
I heard a woman the other day bemoaning the new system and refusing to pay up for the same reason – she spent all her time filling her bin with “council leaves”. They were their leaves, so she wouldn’t pay. As far as I can tell, leaves are ultimate free spirits which can roam at will and take up residence wherever they fall with impunity. I doubt if any court would assign ownership after they fell off a tree.
In a poem, Emily (Wuthering Heights) Bronte wrote dreamily, “Every leaf speaks bliss to me, Fluttering from the Autumn tree.”
She obviously didn’t have a bin permit.
The roots of all this go back to a catastrophic change in the fortunes of council finances in the past decade. There was a time when the living was easy. Councils could dig into bottomless pits of public cash and waste as much as they wanted. Or rather bottomless pits of public debt which simply rolled over from year to year.
Aberdeen came unstuck spectacularly even before the proper recession kicked in. Austerity did the rest. Now council finances are in a mess and all authorities are scrutinising every money-making scheme under the sun to subsidise council tax.
The SNP Government stands accused of short-changing councils on a grand scale year after year, and leaving them to face the music with the public.
But on the plus side Aberdeen is bravely (or foolishly, some might argue) pressing on with grand schemes to transform the city despite having financial problems -and dipping into the family silver (cash reserves) to pay for it.
I am all for it – after all, building Union Street around 200 years ago almost bankrupted the city but where would they have been without it? I don’t mind as long as my £30 helps this process.
I just fear a letter fluttering through my letter box like a leaf every year – blissfully informing me that the permit price is going up again.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of the Press and Journal