Building a Better Grimsby: Believe in the Possibilities

I want to preface this by saying that this is not the post I intended to be writing for Great Grimsby Day.

 

Anyone who follows this account will know that I am all about spreading positivity about Grimsby because I truly believe in our town. It is my birth town, and I am bloody proud to call it my home.

 

However, sometimes, things need to be said.

 

Last night, I went out with the intention of taking night-time photos of Grimsby landmarks to share in a post to celebrate Great Grimsby Day. In the centre of town, I had three landmarks in mind:

 

1. The new water fountain on the Riverhead
2. The Barge
3. Grimsby Minster

 

We managed the water fountain with no problem, but then we walked across the road to try and take photos of the Barge, and the area was just over-run with kids on bikes, yelling at people. What made this worse – in my opinion – was that there were parents leaving a kid’s party at Party XL, with very young children in tow and I could tell it was making the parents edgy. It was making me feel uneasy too and meant that I gave up on my plans to photograph the Barge, which was a shame.

 

We moved onto Grimsby Minster, only to be greeted by the sounds of smashing, as “people” – I don’t want to assume the age or gender, as I genuinely have no clue – had evidently broken into St James House and were proceeding to smash all the windows. These people cared so little about their home town, the place they have probably spent their entire lives, that they didn’t hold back on absolutely destroying a part of it.

 

By this point my anxiety levels were on overdrive, and whilst I did get my photos of Grimsby Minster, I didn’t get as many as I might have liked.

 

It absolutely frustrates me that what was intended as a positive expedition turned into an overkill of anxiety.

 

It frustrates me that there are countless people fighting ridiculously hard to create a positive place for Grimbarians to live, creating a brighter future for all of us and yet we are raising children to – quite bluntly – not give a toss about their home town.

 

I know that most people will blame the obvious:

The council

The police

The parents

 

And yes, they all share in the blame. But so do the rest of us.

 

Kids learn by example.

 

They have no pride. And why should they when every single day they are surrounded by negativity? Every single day, we let our future generations down. We should be filling them with pride in their town and inspiring them to make it a better place to live.

 

Why should they care about damaging their home town, when every day their local newspaper shares so much doom and gloom, with comment sections filled with unhelpful pessimism and without any effort to put a positive spin on anything?

 

Whenever anyone tries to put on a local event, whether it is organised by the council, a local organisation or anything bigger, people complain about everything from the direction of the lights on a Christmas tree to the price of a local cake maker who is just trying to support their family.

 

Then in the next sentence, those same people are complaining that there is nothing to do. There are things to do, they just don’t interest those people.

 

When the council or organisations give the moaners the opportunity to speak up and have their say about what they do want to make Grimsby a better place for THEM to live, the surveys are followed up with “oh what’s the point, you never listen”.

 

The thing is…we are listening. We want to make Grimsby a better place, but we need all our fellow Grimbarians to work with us.

 

Help us to make Grimsby a better place for our future generations, so they can be proud to call it their home.

 

Instead of complaining, get involved and be the difference.

 

Bringing Grimsby back to greatness can only be done if we all work together to make it so.

 

The thing a lot of people forget is we need to keep kids in Grimsby, we need them to want to stay here and spend their money to help Grimsby to continue growing. However, without the investment of both time and money, there is nothing to keep them here. So instead of getting on the high horse and moaning about how money is being “wasted” on this project or that project, how about learning why these projects are happening. Yes, of course, businesses and investors want to make money, we all do; that’s how we survive in the world.

 

But these projects exist to create jobs and opportunities for all of us, and our future generations.