Here's a neighbour at the door, come in my dear, asking me to fill in name and telephone number as someone to contact in case of need. The form is for local Age Concern drop-in sessions, which sound brilliant - all the sensitive flexibility we expect from local AC activities, and she's raring to go.
Presumably someone will now take my contact details and key them into a database, digitally fixing that relationship of 'neighbour-who-can-be-contacted-in-case-of-need' into a format that can be referred to, passed-on, printed out. I don't have a problem with that. But I wonder if we can expect more of this sort of micro-formalising of essentially informal relations, as the need is recognised to establish a stable platform for informal local support?
What the process does is to first encourage me to put myself at the very foot of a curve of responsibility, and then to record the fact that I have done so. In the unlikely event of some kind of mishap, and the next of kin not being available, they can telephone me. Fine, and if I have twenty similar claims tomorrow I would sign them all.
But neighbourliness works because it is not formalised, and many people recognise that with the sharpest intuition. We will soon be living in interesting times.
