THE TRAVELLERS AND I

I volunteered to take a walking group round the lake today. It's the latest thing from HR. I think it's supposed to be a nice way to do some lunchtime mingling with colleagues you wouldn't normally speak to, while also moving and breathing some fresh air for half an hour.

Well, fresh-ish: the local travellers had left a dead dog in one of the bushes and were attempting to wash a ropey looking horse in the lake. Even the ducks looked outraged.

Anyway, the idea of a nice walk is a good thing. Quite why we need a tour guide is a bit beyond me but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. After all, I am all for things that bring people together.

So I waited in the lobby. I checked the time, whistled cheerily and then realised that nobody was coming.

So I set out for a good old figure-of-eight march around the lake on my own.

It has struck me that in order for people to come together you do really need a thing that draws them - and it has to be more than just because it's a nice thing to do. I don't know whether an activity that any one of us could easily do anyway will really cut the mustard. Anyway, maybe it will take off a bit better next week and prove me wrong.

I'd have liked the travellers to have proven me wrong too, you know. I've felt sorry for the prejudice that they encounter, the astonishing assumption everybody has that they are perpetual criminals, and the lowly status which is thrust upon them by this nimbyistic society.

I feel that sense of alienation in every email from the business park asking us to be 'watchful' and promising us 'resolution' as though this band of nomads were some sort of infestation. I find myself remembering what happens when you start dehumanising people by labelling them like this, and I feel scared about how easy it is to do.

And then, I wander around the corner and I'm greeted by the stench of horse-poo and the rotting corpse of a threadbare dog, wafting between some dirty caravans. I think that they could do a lot to help themselves really.

Then again, couldn't we all? I got back to the office and slid into my chair, ready to tap away at the afternoon.