ONE of my fondest memories of the breath-taking time before our first elections is of attending consultative meetings about – oh, pension policy, land ownership, local government, whatever – with Black Sash members who were a bit older and more experienced than me.
They’d learnt that, to get consultation right, you had to be prepared to spend time on it. Marathon meetings were the result – hours and hours of every last stakeholder rising to address his or her particular grievance or point of passion. So they knitted. Large swathes of colourful jersey accompanied them, tucked in with the files and papers.
And when it was their turn to talk, down would go the knitting and out would come the reading glasses… The final result would please nobody 100%, but everybody would feel satisfied that they’d got at least part of what they wanted.