Open Eye: Decency can be a winner

INTERVIEWING THE Chairman of the Campaign for Courtesy - which was formerly the Polite Society - is not to be undertaken lightly. Would my manners let me down?

Approaching the front door of OU graduate Gerry Hanson's home in Iver Heath, South Bucks, I havered between a handshake and "how do you do" and a cheery "Hi, Gerry".

And, thanks to the M25, I was seriously late for my appointment. Deduct ten points for starters.

In the event it was all so normal - a smile and a hello from Gerry and his wife, sympathy as I mumbled my apologies, and Gerry and I were soon lolling comfortably on the lounger in the garden of his immaculate bungalow, sipping tea, out of mugs.

Gerry Hanson, I knew, was not a man to be trifled with on the question of courtesy. Appearing on Jeremy Paxman's Newsnight in a head-to-head with film producer and restaurant critic Michael Winner - a man who lists `being difficult' as a recreation in his Who's Who entry - he did not mince his words.

"I have to tell you, Michael, that when your name is mentioned, charm is not the first word that springs to anyone's mind," he told Winner, who was defending his famously outspoken behaviour in restaurants. Winner retaliated later by describing Gerry in his News of the World column as "the rudest man I have met in my life".

That I find hard to believe. Talking to Gerry, what comes over strongly is a dislike of extremes, a very British leaning towards moderation - "decency "is one of his favourite words. But just what does he mean by "courtesy"?

"I don't care whether someone calls a napkin a serviette or a lavatory a loo. The basic concept is about decency, unselfishness, consideration for others. Things like saying `please' and `thank you' are just outward signs of an inward attitude. The Campaign for Courtesy isn't trying to tell people how to behave, but rather to point out the benefits to society of treating other people in a considerate manner.

"The benefits are physical, social and financial. Any psychiatrist will tell you that about 20 per cent of the people in psychiatric wards are there because they feel unloved and unwanted. If we were more decent to one another we could reduce the people occupying NHS beds.

"Take accidents - one insurance company worked out that 50 per cent of all car accidents started with an act of discourtesy. Or stress - the biggest killers are stress-related diseases. Imagine you work in a papershop. People come in first thing in the morning, throw 30p on the counter and say `Mail', and walk out without looking at you. How different if they smile and say `Good morning, Mail please'. Courtesy reduces stress."

Not quite what I expected. But we are on more familiar ground when Gerry talks about the decline in courtesy in British society and the need to reverse the `yob' society. I asked him to define this.

"Aggressive, devil-take-the-hindmost behaviour, the weakest go to the wall. You don't care about your language, you don't care how scruffily or sloppily you dress, or about obeying the normal rules of society."

As a small instance, he points out how on TV today your rarely see anyone bother to pour a drink into a glass, they usually drink directly from the can or bottle. A direct-from-the-can drinker myself, I'm quick to suggest this hardly indicates the decline of civilised society. Different generations, after all, may have different habits. Gerry concedes the point. "I'm not suggesting it's terribly important. I don't want to make too much of the `yob' society, or suggest we're all going to hell in a handcart.

"What I'm talking about is examples of those hundreds of things which show a lack of respect and consideration. If you throw your empty burger bags on the ground, it shows you don't care for other people and for society in general."

Litter, I can agree to hate. I ask Gerry why he thinks the rot set in. "I wouldn't want to throw brickbats at Margaret Thatcher, I don't think it was her intention to promote a selfish, `me first' society, but that is what happened. In the `'70s and `'80s we were encouraged to be aggressively acquisitive and self-seeking.

"I think there are signs of a desire to get back to more kindly, decent behaviour." The Campaign gets more than a thousand letters a year, almost all supportive.

"Few people disagree with the concept, although only about ten per cent join us."

Rather patronisingly, perhaps, I picture these Campaigners as stalwarts of Middle England - dwellers in a comfortable land of Radio 4, nice gardens and letters to The Times. It comes as shock when I ask Gerry about his own background. It was far from comfortable.

"I was born in the slums in Manchester - my mother was a nursery governess and unmarried. To be an unmarried mother in 1929 must have been dreadful, and she couldn't cope with it." Gerry was brought up by foster parents and was "not unhappy" he says, but insecure. "I knew I didn't actually belong to that family. "And to be illegitimate in the '30s was not funny. There was a stigma."

He went to a local elementary school where he was top of his class. The war came. "Just before we were due to take our eleven-plus the school was bombed and we lost six months education as a result. No allowance was made for this, and no-one from the school passed."

He left school at 14, joined the civil service, and did his National Service in the RAF. He and his wife started their own company selling china and glass, which they ran for 25 years - he retired five years ago. He did his BA Hons with the OU between 1990 and 1997 "and a whole new horizon opened up for me".

He joined the Campaign for Courtesy after hearing its founder, Congregational minister Ian Gregory, on radio. He also does freelance journalism and broadcasting, including interviews and an occasional programme on poetry on his local Premier Radio.

The Campaign is a registered charity with about 10,000 paid-up members. It runs a National Day of Courtesy, focusing on a different theme each year.

Boxer Frank Bruno - epitomising perhaps the Campaign's maxim that "courtesy is strength" - helped promote their Showing Appreciation campaign.

This year it is "Courtesy's Cool" - aimed squarely at the young. The Campaign is putting pounds 1,000 of its modest annual budget into running a national competition for 11 to 16 year olds for the best essays on "Why manners matter". The money will go as prizes to individuals and for school equipment.

"I have a strong feeling we are going to learn an enormous amount about how young people think," says Gerry.

He will be 70 in September and hopes to step down as Chairman, but so far no successor has come forward. It's a rare person, it seems, that gets passionate about moderate values like courtesy. And in an age of extremes, quite refreshing.

For more information about the Campaign for Courtesy, write to Gill Mackenzie, Honorary Secretary, 6, Norman Avenue, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1SG.