Gloriously Ordinary Sundays - 8th June 2025

As a follow-up from my chat with Maff Potts on last week’s Gloriously Ordinary Sundays podcast, I was on a call listening to him being interviewed by the equally wonderful Nadjeschda Taranczewski and I had a bit of an insight. It relates to Test Four and the concept of friends and connections and it pulled me up a bit.

A bit of background before I share my ah-ha moment. Lots of you know that Maff set up and runs The Association of Camerados and their bread and butter is Public Living Rooms. If you want to find out more then please do check out the website where there is loads of great info (and where you can learn how to set up your own Public Living Room), but the key is:

Public living rooms have sofas and cuppas, maybe some tunes, maybe some board games. They are warm welcoming places with people who listen, who treat everyone the same, who don’t judge or try to fix each other.

Each public living room is different. They are not manned by staff, they are set up and organised by camerados for their communities and are open to all. And all of them use the six simple camerado ideas to underpin how they run.

On the call, Maff talked about how much he loves the transient connections of a Public Living Room; chatting to people about biscuits, what you will have for dinner, the weather. Maff is an (amazing) jazz pianist and he said he loves arriving at a gig, getting set up and having a conversation with the drummer about how his back is holding up and how his brother’s doing. After the gig, in Maff’s words, ‘We have a big hug say goodbye and that’s it done’.

What he’s describing is that wonderful relationship that is summed up by the concept of being a camerado:

…and he went as far as to say that he actually enjoys these relationships more than close friendships (I’m pretty certain that his wife is the exception to that!). And I really got it.

So, my insight?  What I realised with a bit of a bang is how easy it is for support we might get in the name of social care to get in the way of these day-to-day transactional relationships, the camerado moments.

In Test Four,  I make a big deal about the importance of supporting, enabling and nurturing real friendships and I stick by that... AND what I’d like to add now please (courtesy of Maff) is that we need to pay attention to getting out of the way of people’s lives enough of the time that they get to have those transient, seemingly inconsequential low-level passing relationships.

The chat with the postie or the Amazon delivery person.

Asking for help to find something in Tesco’s.

Discussing the weather with the person at the bus stop.

Saying hi to your neighbour in passing.

Because they’re actually not inconsequential at all, are they? They’re part of knowing that we’re connected as humans to other humans.

If I’m being supported by someone to go and do my food shop or to go to my dance class, it’s really easy for that person to ‘do the small’ talk – to be the person who says hello when you arrive at the dance class or asks about the specials in a café. And it’s not just about paid support, I’ve been that ‘buffer’ when out with my Mum or my kids and I’ve not left the space for one of them to be the one to make the connection.

It's ten years this summer that I moved back down south having lived all my adult life in the North East and Yorkshire. People laughed at my silly northern ways and in particular my ability to talk to anyone (that might actually be my Dad’s genes). ‘No one talks on the Tube’ people will tell you. Bollocks. I smile relentlessly at people in all parts of the underground system, I comment on someone’s amazing hat, hair or coat and 100% of the time people respond with a smile and sometimes even a chat.

Interestingly enough, as part of some work I’m doing around challenging positive behaviour support, I had a chat with someone last week whose sister was being discouraged through PBS from saying hello to older women and calling them Nanna as it ‘wasn’t appropriate’ ...hmmm.

So, my challenge for the week? Notice the number of those camerado conversations you have and what they give you, and then start a conversation where you live or work about how we can get out of the way of people’s lives enough to make sure everyone gets to enjoy those moments of connection.

PS. Did you see? The Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast episode 12 is here. I chat with chat with ⁠Maff Potts⁠, founder of ⁠The Association of Camerados⁠ and author of 'Friends and Purpose'.

We explore Maff's brilliant concept of 'front of house' versus 'back of house' - using the restaurant analogy to show how we often bring our very dehumanising policies, procedures, and language into spaces where people should feel human, comfortable and valued.