Can't we show a bit of respect?

IT WAS a colleague who got me started on my search for a little respect. She had noticed a little bent old woman waiting for a bus. When it arrived, all the young people waiting barged on first. Not one of them tried to help her.

"It was as if they just didn't see her," my colleague said.

The pensioner did receive help eventually, but from older passengers, not the younger ones.

Was this an isolated case - or did it represent society today? Have we brought up a younger generation who are thoughtless, selfish, and lacking in respect and consideration for others? Or is rudeness a wider problem, affecting young and old alike?

Tony Blair, with his call for more respect and courtesy on our streets, thinks there is a problem. Not content to take his word for it, I went on to the streets of York to try to find out for myself.

Elizabeth Downes was sitting neatly at the bus stop in Merchantgate, a giant shopping bag perched beside her. Would she have time to chat for a couple of minutes about respect? Yes, the pensioner said politely, warning that she might have to break off suddenly if her bus came.

I launched into my pre-rehearsed set of questions. If people saw her struggling to get on a bus with a big bag, did they try to help her? No, she said. "I just get on myself."

And did people in the street treat her with respect? "Some people do. A lot of people don't. They just don't seem as if they see you. They walk straight into you. You can see them walking three abreast and you have to walk into the road to get past."

It was all different when she was young, said Mrs Downes. "We were brought up to be respectful of other people."

So far, so good. Then came the surprise. It wasn't only younger people who were disrespectful, Mrs Downes said. "I find some young students are really nice. It is mainly elderly couples."

Strike one for the younger generation. Up on Pavement, however, young mum Caroline Hardy, pushing her baby daughter Sophie in a huge buggy, had a different view.

Caroline, 26, remembered seeing an elderly man fall off a bus. "People rallied around to help," she said. "But they were older people. Younger people tend to watch or laugh. It is not funny."

If people see her struggling to get through a door with her pram, would they help? "People do sometimes help. But it tends to be middle aged men or people in suits. Younger people do sometimes, but not a lot. They don't seem to have a lot of respect for people. They just stand and stare at you as though you have two heads."

Why was that, did she think?

"I was brought up in an Army family, and we were brought up to respect our elders and other people around us. A lot of people just aren't like that, they're not brought up with those kind of values."

I carried on up Colliergate. There, where the street narrows, I saw my first act of respect and kindness. Mrs Olive Hardy, 83, was making her way carefully up the narrow pavement with the help of a wheeled zimmer frame.

A bicycle locked up against a wall blocked part of the pavement, and she was having trouble getting past until a young woman held the bicycle wheel out of the way. Mrs Hardy nodded her thanks.

That was kind of her, wasn't it? I said. Mrs Hardy nodded. "There are some very nice people," she said.

Further up the street, a lorry was parked on the pavement, blocking the pavement and causing a tailback into Petergate. Mrs Hardy was not impressed.

"This is what I don't like," she said. "It's wrong. The pavement is not for parking on."

She agreed there was generally less respect for others today and that younger people never seemed to have time to think about others. "Things have changed," said Mrs Hardy. "There's not the care in people. I care a lot about people. When I was young, I had to be more respectful. If we saw an elderly person carrying a bag, we gave them a hand. But people today don't seem to care as much as they should do."

It was time to speak to a younger person. This didn't prove easy. Two teenaged boys in trendy sportsgear hanging around outside a Petergate sports shop weren't helpful. Did they have a minute to talk about respect?

"Nah, I don't do that sort of thing," one said. "Sorries about that, mate." They sloped off.

In Goodramgate, near Monk Bar, a shaven-headed young man in a raggedy parka was striding along cockily. He spat on the street ostentatiously as he passed me.

I chased after him and caught up with him looking in a shop window. "Excuse me, mate. Have you got a moment to talk about respect?" He looked startled, then looked at his watch.

"I've got an appointment at 10.30," he said. "In fact, I've missed it already." And he hurried off.

Goth Abigail Holden was more friendly. Dressed all in black, and with a ring through her lip, the 17-year-old looked pretty fierce. Appearances can be deceptive, however. She would always help somebody who was struggling to get on a bus, or through a door, she said.

She accepted that while some of her friends were also helpful, a lot of people her age were not. Many were quite "self-involved", she said. They cannot have been brought up properly. "I feel sorry about it. I would like to see more respect for other people."

Rob Myers, a 25-year-old bar worker, also made time to talk. He felt teenagers were lacking in respect and blamed parents.

"I think it's due to the breaking down of control between the parent and the child," he said. But the answer wasn't just about discipline, he said. "I think parents really need to explain to their children the reasons why they shouldn't do certain things."

And what about himself - would he stop to help someone get on a bus? He paused for a moment. "If it was required, yes," he said.

It was clear, however, that he wouldn't feel comfortable about it. Why not? "It's not that I wouldn't want to give a hand," he said. "But I wouldn't want to make them feel useless."

Now that was an interesting answer. I suspect that part of the reason a lot of us aren't more helpful in public these days is that we don't want to patronise people, or push our help on them when it might not be really wanted. Thinking about their feelings is a kind of respect, surely?

Perhaps the truth is things just aren't as simple or black and white as they used to be.

"I don't think we're on the edge of a cliff of a national tragedy."

EDUCATIONAL psychologist turned teen novelist Angela Dracup isn't convinced that young people today are less respectful than they used to be.

Yes, they often hang around in gangs making noise, the Harrogate-based author says. And yes, some do seem to wear hoodies in a deliberate attempt to appear intimidating.

But they are in a minority - and there have always been gangs of teenagers.

She knows a lot of young people who are not disrespectful or aggressive. "I certainly don't think we're on the edge of a cliff of a national tragedy."

That said, she agrees that people do behave differently these days. We are generally more assertive, and less deferential to those in authority. And while crime figures don't support the view that we live in more violent times, she accepts that there is a widespread feeling that we live in less respectful times.

If that is true, it may be related to the way we live now. Families are less stable, she says, and parents are often too busy to spend a lot of time with their children.

"That means the parents are not there as a role model, so young people tend to turn more to their peer groups."

Cecil 'Tug' Wilson, a retired Royal Navy Reserve lieutenant who received an MBE for his work with York sea cadets, believes young people would benefit from more structure and more discipline in their lives. In the sea cadets, young people learn three things, he says: leadership, discipline and self-respect.

They soon learn to accept the drill, and to accept calling their teachers 'sir' or 'ma'am' - and they quickly come to have pride in their uniforms. "They have to earn their uniforms," he said. "They have to be in the sea cadets for three months, have to be in civvies while the other are in uniform. And they do it."

He feels that generally young people today are spoiled and lacking in discipline and respect. They would benefit from getting involved in groups such as the cadets, he said - and from learning a bit more discipline, and even doing a bit of drill, at school.

He was particularly angered by the incident in Widnes this week in which teenagers threw a piece of wood through the windscreen of a funeral limousine.

"There is no heroism in that," he said. "Respect has gone there, hasn't it?"

Updated: 10:51 Friday, May 20, 2005