Alan Savage column.

Byline: By Alan Savage 

During 1995, i took an idea to assemble a collection of 2,000 different species of trees from every far-flung corner of the globe in my village. Project 2000, I called it. A rather appropriate name, I thought.

Creating something within your community can be a fascinating learning curve, believe me.

As co-ordinator, I set up meetings with other agencies, the media and residents, as well as meeting with countless extremely kind, generous dendrologists all over the country.

There was one meeting in particular that stuck in my mind: staff at the University of Liverpool environmental and horticultural research station ( better known as Bess Botanic Gardens ( gave me free rein to choose whatever species I liked from a vast array of new plant introductions.

Walking through row after row of beautiful trees and shrubs, gathered by famous collectors like George Forrest and E H Wilson, I was awe-struck by the wonderful history associated with trees, and the genuineness and dedication that the staff put into helping me create something. In a way, the closeness I felt by engaging in something meaningful with others reminded me of conversations my mates and I would have with pensioners when we were kids.

We would sit for ages listening to old folk's tales and make the effort to be part of a community as a whole.

Nothing was rushed, things were considered carefully and there was a real sense of ownership of everything we did in our own street.

Co-ordinating things ought to be like that. All the bits and bobs coming together to make a whole: a public garden blooms to become one part of an estate, town and wider region. And when something goes pear-shaped, a co-ordinated effort can be made to look at the problem and put it right.

In today's communities, however, people are well versed at nit picking and fault finding. When it comes to actually co-ordinating the effort to remedy problems, rolling one's sleeves up seems alien.

As a matter of fact, life has become almost an existence in which vast numbers of people have managed to convince themselves that the more they talk a subject to death, the more it becomes someone else's responsibility.

It alarms me greatly that more and more people seem to be moving along the conveyer belt of the criminal justice system having suffered a personal disorder or mental breakdown.

I can't help but wonder if it will take countless public inquiries, of the sort social services have seen over the years, before the public comes to its senses and realises mental heath services are creaking at the joints.

I was truly disturbed to learn, while listening to a Radio 4 debate, that Britain now has a far worse mental health problem than it had in the 18th Century.

But mental health is a taboo subject; indeed, recent news stories reinforce the point with sufferers labelled as nutcase, oddball, and weirdo by neighbours.

Listening to a woman sufferer pouring her heart out during the debate, one could not help be moved by her plight. She told how she became just a "thing" when she suffered a mental breakdown and how, when she was in hospital, her husband brought their first new-born grandson in. "He might as well have fetched a pound of sausages in," she said. There was no feeling of anything inside of her.

Many years ago, people would have made time to empathise with a neighbour's mental health problems if they came across someone needing emotional support. Today, we go about our daily life as if nothing matters anymore.

We have nice houses, well paid jobs and friends who can talk the back legs off a donkey when it comes to the world's ails, whilst missing the point that we are that very same community of people we fractiously waggle our finger at.

East Cramlington resident Alan Savage describes himself as not a "full shilling", having suffered mental health problems. He is a parent, adult learner, and community activist.