Losing touch in a faceless future

WHILE staying with my son and his wife last weekend I picked up a John le Carré paperback on my way to bed. A Murder Of Quality was not one I’d heard of before, first published in 1962. Apparently it was his second novel and in it George Smiley finds himself caught up in the investigation of a murder in a country boarding school. He travels to Dorset by train and – get this – le Carré writes: “He telephoned the hotel from the station and sent his luggage ahead by taxi.”

Good luck with doing that now, I thought.

Then Smiley potters along to the police station. Today of course there would be no actual police station to visit any more than there would be a post office or a library. If you are lucky there might be a branch of your bank (or possibly just a cash machine in a wall) but otherwise feel free to visit a coffee chain or browse in a charity shop.

In 1962 the Duty Sergeant at the front desk welcomes Smiley who asks to speak to the officer investigating the murder. Inspector Rigby duly presents himself.

Not that I’ve ever asked to speak to the police officer investigating a murder but I doubt whether I’d get anywhere if I did.

My request would be passed to some faceless team who – because of “data protection” – would be unwilling to talk to me, even if they did ever answer the phone or reply to an email.

In 1962 a police cadet brings in tea on a tray (teapot, china cups, tea strainer).

Now obviously fiction is not the same as fact. We all know that country spinsters seldom solve mysteries nor do amateur sleuths gather all the suspects in the drawing room before they reveal the identity of the killer. But reading a few pages of le Carré’s book made me think about how faceless and anonymous our world has become. The local amenities we used to take for granted and which created a sense of community have disappeared from the high street. How often do we search in vain for a phone number on a website, hoping to find someone to talk to?

The internet is wonderfully efficient at some things – but useless for many others.

A woman in her 90s lives near me. She is sharp as a tack but pretty well immobile.

Recently she wanted to transfer money from a savings account to her current account. She doesn’t own a computer or a mobile phone, let alone do online banking.

She phoned a number but got nowhere, waiting for ages and intermittently told that “your call is important to us”.

Did I think, she asked, that if she gave me a note to slip under the door of the local branch that someone would call her?

I said I thought it was extremely unlikely. Obviously, I helped her out with this small problem in the end. But really...do things have to be so difficult?